Won an eight hour challenge

Fools and Cthulhu is the first ebook that I put up on Amazon.

Last week, Joe Konrath (one of the writers and bloggers that I read on a regular basis) offhand was talking about how easy it was for writers to forget that writing can be fun (quite easy to forget when you are focused on the business end of things). And he mentioned how he cranked out a few items over a beer--really short humorous ebooks) in the space of an hour.

Then he issued a challenge to his readers--write, edit, format, cover illustrate, and upload a short ebook in eight hours. And he said that he would blog about the winners...hmmm, there was no way that one could go south, was there?

Now, I am not sure how many writers read his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, but he was shocked that over an one hundred and forty of us actually completed the challenge.

Including myself.

Now, I will admit that I knew ahead of time that I could complete the challenge; after all, a lot of the erotica I write is short stories completed within ten hours (outlined, written, edited, cover made, formatted and uploaded with just ten hours used to complete the whole nine yards).

But it had been awhile since I wrote something just for fun--at least, ebook-wise.

The tricky part was that Joe Konrath likes Amazon (he does not think that they are the devil), so he wanted you to do the uploading to Amazon. And in my case, I have never done that before (I have been dealing with Smashwords and their distribution network).

Yes, I had been putting off learning how to do so...for awhile...much to my surprise, it was not nearly as painful as I imagined it to be.

Anyway, I now have another short-short story up in ebook form on the internet. And yes, I know, I should have stuck to writing erotica.

Fools and Cthulhu is 99 cents on Amazon.

Monopoly Cat wins

Monopoly Cat automatically wins Monopoly.

Back in February, people were asked to vote on what Monopoly token they wanted to replace, and what they wanted to replace it with. In the end, the Iron token was replaced with a Cat token. The Cat received 31 percent of the vote...which is just further proof that cats are the Secret Chiefs (because Secret Chiefs this century advertise their awesomeness even when you are unwilling or unable to contact them or even understand their decisions).

Yes, I voted for the Cat token.

And I would have taken a picture of my own cat on a Monopoly board...except I have no clue where I stored the board.

My wild theory of the day: If your cat kicks off all the other players' tokens onto the floor and occupies the entire board, you win. No, what do you mean that is not how it works?! That is how Monopoly works in Golden Dawn, so why shouldn't the game that teaches us that we want to control a monopoly not work the same way?

(For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the GD Monopoly rules, the rules clearly state that if your GD group has a Secret Chief that you get to rule everyone else's Order while puking up hairballs in their closets and pissing on all their hard work. Don't believe me? Well, produce your copy of the GD rulebook and prove to me that it does not say so in the rules. Oh, you can't prove that it does not say that...because you claim there is no such rulebook...well, alrighty then--I win! just like Monopoly Cat does.)

Dear Broncos fans of the muggle variety

Let the taunting begin.

Dear Broncos fans of the muggle variety,

We are so sorry that you are upset that the NFL decided to hang up pictures of the Baltimore Ravens' quarterback downtown and on the side of the stadium. But some of us feel more supportive of the Ravens than we do of the Denver Broncos. It is nothing personal--it is just when you talk about sports that do not happen on broomsticks, us wizards tend to decide who to cheer for based solely on the totems and colors, and where we live doesn't matter so much. And I like ravens better than I like horses, plus their team colors are nicer. This is also true of the Minnesota Vikings--I like their totem and colors better too. I know that this type of logic eludes you muggles, just like the fact that football is so f***ing boring! But please try to keep it in mind when I am cheering for someone other than your local sport teams.

P.S. The only exciting football in human history is of the zero gee variety; and sorry, I still can't cheer for Denver in that time period because my favorite team is the London Jets. I don't imagine you muggles understand time travel either. Again, sorry that your feelings are bent out of shape.

Sincerely,

The Wizard of Cook St.

Book Review--Immersion Mastery (Zack Jezek)

Immersion Mastery by Zack Jezek was a hard book for me to finish. I abandoned it several times since starting to read it in November. I only finished it though sheer force of will.

One of my problems with the book is sheer amount of bragging that the author engages in; he is proud of the fact that he became a Reiki master and Mayan shaman at age ten, and that he is also a NLP master and a professional skate boarder. Jezek wrote this book at the ripe old age of nineteen. Yes, this book brought back flashbacks from earlier in my esoteric career, for I acquired a high degree far too young and said some damn stupid things earlier in my life believing that I actually knew what I was talking about. Maybe Jezek will be different, but I personally find my earliest writings as an esoteric leader and teacher to be almost physically painful to read.

While I agree with Jazek's opinion that his generation are the leaders of the future, I do not necessarily agree with him that his generation is any more unique than any previous generation. Sure, they have their own set of brand-new problems which young adults have never seen before, but a lot of generations have been able to say that statement.

So is there anything worthwhile in this book? And will it appeal to teen and twenty-somethings?

Yes, it will appeal to his own generation who will believe that they are somehow special and that their problems and disadvantages are actually assets and special abilities. And yes, I do believe that attention and compulsive disorders can be assets--history is full of famous people who today would be labeled ADHD/ADD and/or OCD. In fact, I would probably be labeled with an attention disorder if I would have went though high school five years later than I did (ADHD was just being a bad kid when I was in school)--not that I will ever be famous, yet these things are a daily part of my own life to a certain extent. But Jezek lays it on so thick, it is like a commercial to remain immature forever.

And maybe the book does have some worthwhile stuff in it. But it is buried deep in feel good talk aimed at making teen and twenty-somethings believe that they are perfectly ok just the way that they are. I am not sure Jezek is going to feel the same way when he is forty.

As for esoteric techniques talked about in this book (after all, I review esoteric and New Age books), there is a version of the "grounding as a tree" mediation, some game console based mental reprogramming techniques, a watered down version of the immersion method (my regular readers will know this better as magical boot camp or power week), and a hint of the chaos magic technique of interchangeable personalities. But they are all so caked in happy talk that quite honestly, I can't imagine anyone over the age of thirty being able to tolerate this book; or for that matter, any parent that has been exposed to the techniques in a different setting. And there are better sources for each and every one of the exercise and techniques, or at least better written ones (Jezek is far away from being a good writer).

I am giving this a weak two stars out of five.

[Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book though a Goodreads First Reads drawing.]

Magic butter

My mind just goes to wrong places when I think about Magic Butter.

In the sidebar on Facebook a few minutes ago, I saw an ad for the Facebook page for Magic Butter. And yes, my mind went to a wrong place...twice in a row.

One, I live in Colorado where we have medical marijuana, and sort-of have recreational marijuana (large parts of the state is busy making sure that you can't buy it in their neighborhood).

Two, I write erotica--yes, go say Yecch! and complain to the world that I am a nasty person who should not be in Golden Dawn (exactly what do you want me to do for a living?).

Anyways, there is a point to all this...or at least, I think there is.

This botanical extractor makes medicinal butters, oils, and tinctures. And it costs one hundred and eighty dollars.

And I would need it why? (Yes, that is my point here.)

Oh, c'mon now--you thought it too.

All of us who have taken an alchemy class or an extended herb class know how to do this in our kitchens, right? Surely, I am not the only one that had a High Priestess cover the basics of this one, right? If hard pressed, I am quite sure that I could teach the method--and everyone knows that I am a lousy esoteric teacher--so I am quite sure that if you have someone in your lodge/Order who have taken a class, they can teach the class also. We should be knee deep in Golden Dawn magical butter, and probably are...

And if not, well, I guess you can buy a MB2...personally, I can't afford to buy one because my cats are eating me out of house and home.

But I will admit that I wonder how magical butter tastes on wheat-free toast.

You can use Magic Butter to make yummy food.

Does Facebook ignore hate speech against pagans and wiccans?

Troll cat issues a warning that I might get burnt at the stake.

Lately, there seems to be a rash of hate pages on Facebook promoting violence against pagans, Wiccans, and witches. One even includes the words "should be burned." And Facebook has basically stated that they do not see the harm in such pages...because it is ok to joke about burning people who are not Christian (hey, it is a theory--and Facebook has not given me any indication that my theory is wrong). Furthermore, despite people reporting such hate pages, Facebook has left them up for all to see.

But I betcha that if you put up a page calling for the burning of Christians (even just the heretics) that Facebook would be taking down the page, and ban you in a heartbeat for your hate-filled joke.

And why? Because we all know that when your religion controls the largest percentage of people in the country that you can pretty much say what you want without any blowback while claiming that your religion is under siege by those silly and completely false religions that represent less than five percent of the population. (I am always amazed how quickly the Christians fundies seem to be able to get people and pages removed from Facebook, but us pagans can't get the time of day from FB.)

[The following is for the United States...which is probably half of the Facebook users in the world--yes, I know, more research is needed...but I am a blogger; I don't deal in facts!]

The smaller your slice of the religious pie, the more likely you are to be burned at the stake for defending your religious views.

As for the defense that such pages are meant as a joke, well there is a small fly in the ointment.

And that is--some people really believe that witches should still be burned at the stake because their god tells them to do so (in what has to be one of the most hate filled books of all time--aka the Bible).

I have met some of these people. And they have said this nonsense to my face. Even knowing that I am a witch. And worse, when I protest, they say, "We don't mean you--you are one of the good ones." Shades of Nazi Germany alive and well in the freedom loving United States--of course, I imagine that the 1938 version of FB probably would not see the harm of Hitler and his followers either and their jokes about the hated Jews; after all, the Nazis were a big percent of the audience back then, and you can't go against the majority--or at least, that seems to be the rule on Facebook.

Remember that it is ok to believe such nonsense and hatred aimed at pagans, Wiccan and witches because it is right there on Facebook (and if it still up, it does not violate FB's rules of usage, including the anti-hate speech clause).

For those who haven't signed it yet, there is a petition on Change.org calling for Facebook to quit ignoring pages that promote hatred and violence against pagans, Wiccans, and witches.

Where clown makeup comes from

Look at all that clown makeup.

Yesterday, I was helping my wife clean out some buckets of old pottery glazes. (She was having a problem with one of the glazes, and she needs to start with a fresh batch of glaze to fix the problem.) And in the process, I learned where clown makeup comes from. Ok, maybe not--but at the moment, everything I do can end up being about clowns. (At a certain point, my current clown obsession will make sense...or not...let's just say that clowns are important in one of my writing projects at the moment. As a writer, your entire universe rotates around your latest project.) So anyways, the buckets are now clean, and my wife is good to go for mixing up of the new batches of glaze. And she promises to make no ceramic clowns unless they are cool clowns.

Common sense of politicians.

Old dried out actor remains.

Souls of children.

Tears of orphans.