Got interviewd! And to celebrate, have an Echoes excerpt too...!

Clinton Foster's 'Interviews and Projects' blog has just posted a spot about Watching Yute. I kind of end up on my gay-rights soapbox a little bit, but worse things could happen. All in all, it's good stuff. (in the event you're reading this long after my interview has sunk into the archives, you can probably find it directly by this link.) Thanks again Clinton! I know there's a reason you invented the internet... huh? Different guy? Okay. His own main site is here by the way.

Ah, I've been promising a new excerpt for a while, and I keep procrastinating. Here's the freshest stuff... it's not finalized by any means, and has had limited proof reading, but it does show a facet of "Echoes of Erebus" that I haven't really shown before. To set it up, our hero Sarah dreams from time to time when she has nothing else to do. It becomes clear soon that in her dreams she is 'Amanda', living out events during Erebus' attacks on the city of Meston....

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Sarah found herself again dreaming that she was this 'Amanda'. She was with a group of a dozen or so people, wandering down a deserted street. A nearby discarded newspaper reminded her that she was in the city of Meston.

Some of the people in the group were wounded. Two were kids. A few could be seen carrying weapons. A couple rifles, a bat, a shovel. Everyone walked on cautiously, looking around now and then.
No one spoke, everyone listened. An unidentified sound caused the group to stop and listen. “What is it?” asked the younger child, a boy. He was shushed quickly by the girl standing next to him. Everyone kept listening.

Sarah looked down and saw blood on her hands. Was she injured, or was it someone else's blood? She felt pain. Her hands were scraped. She had fallen at some point.

The sound happened again. A dull but sharp sound. “It's one of those cannon things again.” said a man at the front of the group. “Maybe it means they're trying to send in more evacuation craft. Keep one eye on the sky, folks. If we spot a chopper, or one of those airlimbs coming in, we might be able to hustle over to get a ride.”

“Sure,” Sarah said, “If they don't get shot down by those things first. They'd be nuts to try that again.” Sarah didn't mean to say that, Amanda was in control of this dream. Sarah was just a passenger. Sarah didn't have much of an idea what she was talking about, but it didn't sound that optimistic. “Let's just keep going for now, alright?” A few people in the group murmured in the affirmative, and they got underway.

After a block or so, they came to a blood spill that reached across the entire street. They stopped at the edge of it, each silently considering having to walk across it. It looked to go on for about half a block.
“What the hell happened here?” someone asked quietly.
A woman in the group spoke up with a bit more of a tactical mindset. “Is it even safe to cross? I mean, if the zombies are nanite-driven like the Autar ones were, who's to say that this blood isn't infectious? Or even some kind of trap? It might infect us as soon as we step on it!”

The older of the two kids, a girl roughly twelve years old wandered away from the 'pond', muttering “This isn't happening, this isn't happening. I'm going to wake up now, alright? Someone wake me up now, please!”
That got the attention of the group. Many also looked to the younger child. A boy about eight years old. He was standing, shaking, staring out across the blood pond with wide eyes.

Amanda picked up the boy. “Oh to heck with this. We're not hauling these kids across this. It's too much.”
One of the men with a rifle nodded. “It's not like we were headed for anywhere specific. If we took a left back there, it's still roughly the same distance out of the city.” Amanda hadn't been waiting for his approval, nor the opinions of any of the others. She had already begun carrying the boy in the direction he suggested. The girl was the first to follow and the others were not far behind.

The boy clung to Amanda tightly as they walked, but he was still trembling. “What's your name, kiddo?” Amanda asked softly. He wasn't answering. “Hey little man, can you tell me your name?”
The girl walking beside them answered. “His name is Mitch.”
Mitch was getting heavy, but he still trembled enough that Amanda didn't feel like asking him to walk. “Hi, Mitch. Is this your sister here? She was kind enough to tell me your name, can you introduce me to her?”

“Cathy.” Mitch said quietly. Amanda wanted to draw more conversation out of Mitch, but every topic she could think of probably led to the horrible things going on. Gee Mitch, where are your parents, Mitch? Eaten, you say? Intriguing. You even got to see it happen, and hear the screams of your mother as her own blood bubbled up her throat? See? There's a unique experience you can talk about to your school chums. They what? They were eaten too? Oh, some of them were doing the eating. What a diverse group!

Amanda kept her mouth shut and just gave Mitch an extra squeeze. She wanted to give Cathy a squeeze too, but her arms were full with Mitch. Instead, she looked over to Cathy with a sympathetic forced smile. Cathy returned a similar look. It was heartbreaking.

“What the fuck was that?” a man in the group asked. He was pointing down the street, but nothing was there. “It ran across, it looked kinda big!” Amanda and everyone else kept an eye on that street. Something indeed sauntered out from an adjoining street, several blocks ahead.

A horse. With a rider. Maybe. It was too far off to see details, but it walked like a horse, and it was coming their way. It sauntered casually. Another two horses with riders stumbled into view behind him. They were wrestling as if they were dogs playing. The riders didn't fall off somehow, despite the horses falling on their side several times in their playing, often nearly upside down.

The first horseman continued striding forward slowly as the two playful ones were joined by a fourth. The first was close enough to see that the rider's head was little more than a skull. He raised his arms high in proclamation. He lacked hands; the forearms ended in narrow points. A voice came from him, booming so loud as to rattle windows.

“Hail, good travelers!” Despite a deep tone and immense volume, the voice sounded friendly enough. “This apocalypse is brought to you by our new and righteous lord and god, Erebus! Yes, Erebus! For when death isn't enough for you, Erebus will put extra spring in your step and extra human flesh in your mouth! If you get mutilated by only one necromantic god this year, make it Erebus!”

As the lead horseman lowered his arms, the other three ceased their play and began to charge. It was now easier to see that none of them had normal heads. One's head was replaced with a rifle sticking up, one had a roast turkey sitting up as a head, and the last one had half a dozen impaled rats planted in its neck stump.
All four charged with pointed arms held out to their sides, pointing downward at an angle. With that same volume, a scream came out that sounded a lot like that 'demon of Densfarn' that Sarah had seen.

Mitch grabbed onto Amanda even tighter as the group braced for the inevitable.

Uncle Ben and Gay Pride

Yeah, I never saw Uncle Ben with a lady. 'Confirmed bachelor'? Come on Uncle Ben, you don't have to hide anymore. It's okay!

No wait.. that's not what I was going to talk about. The title is 2 different topics.

From the Food Banks Canada's site, partner program page:
Over the course of the curling season, Uncle Ben’s is pairing up with Team Kevin Martin to support Food Banks Canada. Every time the team wins a curling match, Uncle Ben’s will donate funds to Food Banks Canada. The goal is to raise funds to assist those in need across the country.

Huh? Wait a second. Uncle Ben only cares about those in need when some shmuck wins a game of curling? What kind of douche-baggery is that? What's the point? To hype up CURLING? To get the curling team and Uncle Ben a photo op?

Next year maybe they'll bet a million dollars on the Canucks winning the Stanley cup, with the promise that if they win, the money goes to the United way. Maybe they'll hold a knife to a puppy's throat, and promise to release it if you can win a round-robin tournament of paper-rock-scissors.

Every time a curler loses, this puppy kills a needy person.

In a related story, (related to food banks, not the homicidal nature of puppies) my wife is working with her church to set up a program called 'Open Hands'. It's kind of a foodbank on wheels that plans to focus on a batch of families in need with regular supplies as well as consultation about fixing whatever got them into the tight spot they're in. My wife's a counselor in an outfit that deals with families in trouble all the time, so she has the experience, know how and contacts to get some good stuff moving!

And now for something completely different.

A man with three buttocks. Sorry, couldn't resist. No, I have to be a little serious here. As most people could tell you, I'm all for gay rights. I'll spare you the rant on that, we've all either heard or given it, I think. (although my version of it as delivered by William Shatner is.. Whoops! I was supposed to be being serious, wasn't I?)

Okay. Here it is. Gay pride parades. I have a few friends who go to the one in Vancouver regularly, and when I told one of them that I didn't approve of the parade, I made her jaw drop in shock. "JOE! What?! You? Of all people?!" To be fair, it would have shocked her more if I were gay, but my novels speak quite plainly on my stance on gay people, and how they're... you know... people.

What's my problem then? You've likely at least seen clips on the news of these parades. There's almost always a guy in a tiny g-string running around on roller skates, and other 'shocking' things that aren't so shocking after the bajillionth year. Am I offended? Not really. Would I want my two year old seeing that? Well... she'd be more amused by the roller skating factor than anything.

Why is it that being in a gay pride parade makes it acceptable to run around exposed like that? (The news rarely shows clips of the opening volley of topless lesbian cyclists) If it was any other parade, this kind of display would not go unchallenged. But that's not even really my problem. If 300 straight guys wanna walk down Hastings once a year. Whatever. (on a side note, I attribute much (not all) of the exhibitionism on being young, overly enthusiastic, and having an excuse)

It is BECAUSE I'm rooting for gay rights that I can't stand the pride parades! How does this help gay rights? It gets on the news, and we see 'leather queen' #244572, and it paints the image to some people, (such politicians, my dad, and many many others) that this is what all gay people are really like, and would like to be all the time. The vast majority of gay people are SHOCKINGLY un-shocking! And would like people to know THAT.

I thought that I was thinking innovative thoughts with all that. I really did, and then I find out that it's not new at all. Well of course it isn't new. It's logic. Even last night I saw an episode of "Rick & Steve: The happiest gay couple in the world." A cartoon that has fun with gay society, balancing social commentary with tasteless jokes. Whether it's good or bad for entertainment or gay image is up for debate, I suppose. In this particular episode, the gang went down to San Fran for the BIG pride parade. The following quote is from memory, but anyway:

"Know what I like most about the pride parade?"
"The way it sets back the gay right movement ten years?"

If even a cartoon is summarizing what I thought was an original insight... I guess I should be watching more cartoons.

"Free Tibet!" Tom and Jerry