Helpful Snowman Radio

Goodreads limiting a yearly reading goal to 5000 is so dumb. As if 5000 is more achievable than 99999999999. It’s all made-up nonsense anyway. I already read one book on day one of the year, and I’m still behind on my goal. But hey, I regrouped and now only have to read 12 books per day, every day, to make it. But listen, I gotta go. I’m 6 behind schedule.

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Helpful Snowman Radio Ep 479

More Tyra.

Let’s Play Spiderman. One of ’em.

via IFTTT

Helpful Snowman Radio ep 478

The trek through Modelland continues…

Pete’s Occult Books: Jurassic War by Charles Hinton

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I wrote this whole thing about how to make ebook gifts less shitty. Because ebooks are nice gifts, you just have to work em a little bit. Look it over at @litreactor, take ten minutes and make an ebook into a memorable, heartfelt gift instead of a digital file transaction.

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I…I’ll just walk.

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Beermas/Cagemas double feature! PBR Coffee: this is not an unholy combination of pbr and coffee, it’s like a super sweet Frappuccino thing. I thought it’d be like the sort of thing a dockworker would drink to fight a hangover, a pbr with coffee dropped in, and I was wrong. It’s so sweet it’s almost impossible to drink. The Rose, I’m told, was excellent, and at about three times the alcohol content of a beer, it was a hit. Season of the Witch was almost a movie. It had characters with a purpose and a plot twist of sorts, but at the end of the day it was kinda boring. Did learn from the credits that Gabor is like Mike in Croatia. Fosters is like any decent cheap beer, but being large is a plus. The opening is also small, like the standard opening from before someone invented the wide mouth, so it gets comedy points because it just looks hilarious. The Shandy was pretty good, though the consumer might have still been working through the Rose at that point. Drive Angry is kind of like one of those movies that seems like it was written by me when I was 17. I thought for sure it’d win this year’s Cagey Award for Most Inappropriate Onscreen Relationship, but somehow that’s avoided and instead Cage has sex with a waitress while also having a gunfight, which leaves the waitress understandably traumatized, but also is a good example of the weird tone in this movie. If you’re gonna make that scene, you have to make the waitress a sick weirdo who’s into it, or who like blisses out when she orgasms and doesn’t even remember the gunfight (give her a line like “gunfight? I don’t know. I definitely saw fireworks.”) It’s not as fun as-is. Anyway, it misses the Cage sweet spot because it’s not so weird that it works, and it’s not so fun that it works, it’s just kinda…there.

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Beermas/Cagemas Day 3: Beer 1: fine, though not so much cucumbered. Beer 2: not a huge flavor punch, but boozy. Trapped in Paradisen solid premise, does take place on Christmas. Cage has an accent that fades in and out. John Lovitz should get paid to just do reaction shots in other movies, his “ain’t I a stinker” grin is perfect.

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Just a little sneak peek at something I’m working on.

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Amazing Spider Web Cast Issue 026

This one’s all filler, no killer. Well, some killer. Pretty cutting commentary on the quality of Halloween costumes.

Helpful Snowman Radio Ep 477

We embark on a journey. To a land. Of models.

Beermas/Cagemas 2: Left beer: tasty, delicious, drinkable, would have like 5. Right beer: interesting, super sour, probably best split with a friend. Had a taste of baked crust which was kind of mind blowing. Primal: phoned-in piece of shit, basically Die Hard meets tiger King on a boat. Had so much potential, but mostly squanders it by having no plot. I don’t need a ton of plot, but this one is like a bad guy is loose on a boat, he kills people, then he’s thwarted. Nic Cage is not bad, however, easily the most watchable thing on screen, much better than a bad CGI leopard. I think this was action crap with no aspirations to be anything more than action crap, so they didn’t “go for it” in any big way, and the result is an oatmeal of a movie. HOWEVER, I’m nominating this for best closing shot as it features Nicolas Cage with a cane and a parrot on his arm on the deck of a cargo ship. Out of context this makes no sense and is wonderful. In context it’s also nonsensical, but what are you gonna do?

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Beermas/Cagemas Day 1: A pumpkin beer that was pretty solid, a kolsch that was not bad, and Frozen Ground, a sincere thriller about a serial murderer/rapist with a former Disney kid starring as a prostitute. It’s definitely not bad, although a montage of all the real life victims at the end wasn’t exactly in the spirit of Cagemas. But if you like those based on a true story movies, you’ll probably dig this one. Bonus: the story takes place in the early 80’s, so no sequence of looking things up on the computer filmed from over a detective’s shoulder, a sequence that all filmmakers can feel free to skip, sort of like the way you don’t show us every time the detective takes a dump or eats a sandwich.

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Amazing Spider Web Cast Issue 025

Smythe, Spider Slayers, and what’s possibly the Platonic ideal of an early Spider-Man comic.

Helpful Snowman Radio ep 476

We challenge the challenges of the internet. The WHOLE internet.

Over at @litreactor (On Litreactor? With Litreactor? From Litreactor? Provided by Litreactor? Posted by Litreactor? Hosted by Litreactor?) I’ve got a new column about #PhilipKDick and the story of his grave. I call it “Grave Matters.” Not really. That’s stupid.

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When you think about it, regular tanks are sensory deprivation tanks, too. They just deprive OTHER people of their senses. Rather permanently.

Helpful Snowman Radio Ep 475

A trip through internet memory lane. Which isn’t a particularly long lane, but it DOES involve a moon man advocating beating people up, so there’s something.

When your coworkers are graphic designers.

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Bunch of my stuff is free to celebrate the day I burst forth from my mother. Link in bio. Get something and if you want to be a special birthday friend, give it a review on Amazon or goodreads, whichever you feel is moderately less evil.

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Someday they’ll collect the gems from my columns, and they’ll be quoted all the time, and kids will be as sick of me as I was of ben Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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Podoween 2021 Wrapup

Well, that’s another one for the books. We explore for a haunted statue, make a tasteless plug, and…wait, if this is what’s in books, no wonder nobody reads anymore.

Podoween 2021 ep 33

A GRAVE mistake. Grave? You’ll get it. Just listen for maximum tastelessness.

Podoween 2021 ep 32

Really? Stoney Ghosty?

Podoween 2021 ep 31

How spooky does a dumpster get?

Today on @litreactor: I’m smart! I told you assholes.

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Podoween 2021 ep 30

And with this toddler coffin box, we both hit our stride and alienate our audience.

Podoween 2021 ep 29

Day one of vacation: sorting through the mailbox where I keep all the scraps of ideas. This one is pretty old, the start of Here’s Harold, which is disgusting and I’m very proud of.

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I’ve taken a handful of Litreactor classes over the years. Totally worth it. You get more individual attention and feedback than you would in a writing program, no exaggeration. They make great gifts, too. Put them on your wishlist. No supply chain issues! If you’re new to writing, awesome way to get going. If you’ve been at it for awhile, you’ll learn something, whether it’s from critiques of your work or seeing what’s going on in the work of others.

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Podoween 2021 ep 28

The coldest, frigid-est, frozen-est of cold cases.

Podoween 2021 ep 27

The Chief and an unlikely but hilarious death.

Podoween 2021 ep 26

Grasshopper plague and the best horror movie never made.

Podoween 2021 ep 25

Sometimes you just happen to find a human skull.

The opening of my paranormal detective novel, Ghost Dick.

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Podoween 2021 ep 24

The law offices of Jagov, Jackoft, and Jigdgjoff

Nic knows. From my latest at @litreactor

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Podoween 2021 ep 23

A ghost or a forgetful lady and a crew too lazy to pick up a hammer?

Podoween 2021 ep 22

Court is in session. GHOST session.

Podoween 2021 ep 21

The lynching of a guy who…was kinda asking for it. A charming detail I forgot to include here, when the masked men went to get the jail keys, only one of them spoke, and he used a very fake Irish accent to try and disguise his voice.

Podoween 2021 ep 20

Aaaand either a ghost or forgetful, incorrect person on Facebook. You be the judge.

Podoween 2021 ep 19

A haunted walk down the block.

Podoween 2021 ep 18

Facebook haunt number 1.

Podoween 2021 ep 17

The murderer next door. Well, across the street. Whatever. Close enough.

Podoween 2021 ep 16

An empire of ghoooooosts.

Podoween 2021 ep 15

La Llorona and the legend of the attractive woman ghost.

Podoween 2021 ep 14

Fort Latham. And its twice-moved cemetery. It’s like you guys WANT to start a curse.

Podoween 2021 ep 13

A second Crossing. Cross me again and you’ll regret it!

Podoween 2021 ep 12

The first of many Crossings. Well, of two.