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Only Resolutions & Freaky Friday Fun

So my New Year's post is a bit late, but as you saw from the previous entry, I had a good excuse. Anyway, my thoughts on New Year's resolutions should be no shock to anyone who's familiar with this blog: What's the point? Why wait an entire year to make resolutions that won't last more than a month or two? If you fail in your resolution, start again next week, or next month. Don't use it as an excuse to be lazy and just say to yourself: I'll try again next year. I'm being a bit hardheaded about it, yes, but the truth is New Year's resolutions are nothing more than goals. We all should have goals. Without goals, there would be no reason to live. But, as Joe Konrath constantly points out, it's important to have realistic goals. Meaning I won't make one of my goals I'm going to sell a novel this year, because I have no control over whether or not that happens. I've come close a couple of times to selling a novel, but as they always say, close does not win the race. So yes, an eventual goal is to sell a novel, but how does that happen? Why, by writing one! That is, after all, within my control. I'm finishing up a new novel now (on the home stretch), so my realistic goal for this year is to at least write another novel. That's easy enough. Could I shoot for two? Maybe, but I have some other projects in mind right now that I don't want to overburden myself with wishful thinking.

So ... yeah, that's about that. If you haven't seen it yet, Barry Graham posted a slew of resolutions over at the Dogzplot blog. You'll find my little entry at the very end.

Finally, a number of writers do a Friday Flash Fiction kind of thing on their blogs. I applaud them for their consistency and dedication. Me, I'm just too lazy to do that, so every Friday this year I think I'll post some bizarre video from the week (or a bizarre video that I've come across). Call it Freaky Friday Fun ... or not. I'll post a new video every Friday until either I become bored with it or ... well, until I become bored with it. Because let's face it -- there will always be some bizarro news happening in the world. Here's the first one in case you haven't seen it yet. A woman goes berserko at McDonald's. Apparently she had an issue with a bad burger. At least that's the official word. Personally, I think she got a crappy toy in her Happy Meal and wanted to switch it and they said no. (Don't adjust your volume; there is no sound.) Enjoy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mse98l9iBMo

"Colleges Are Not A Place To Learn How To Write Short Stories Or Novels"

Hey, Ray Bradbury said it, so it has to be true (and in a way, it is). Earlier in the week I'd posted a link on Twitter of a video that was brought to my attention courtesy of Hellnotes. It's Ray Bradbury talking about the inspiration for writing Fahrenheit 451. As it's such a great little clip, I thought I'd share it here too. Have a great weekend.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aKItfLeso4

Hockey Of The Bulls

Over the weekend my wife and I went with my parents up to Harrisburg for a rodeo. My dad has always been a fan of bull riding, and for the last three years we've gone to see the show. It's always a gamble going into one of these events -- so much depends on the bulls, the riders, the rodeo clown, et cetera, on whether or not it will be a good show. Fortunately this year's show was pretty good. I'd posted some pictures on Twitter during the show, but I also filmed some of the action (using my phone, so the video is a bit raw). I thought about showing some clips of the actual bull riding, but ultimately it's not as exciting as the clip below. Called Bull Hockey, two pairs of barrels are set up like goals, and two teams (people from the audience, not actual cowboys) are trapped in there with a bull. The idea is to get the bull to pass through your goal as many times as you can. The team with the most points at the end wins some kind of cash prize. As you can imagine, it's not quite the safest game in the world.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfUoI2lN4Go[/youtube]

Sanctuary Of The Wolf(s)

As promised, we took some pictures of our visit to the wolf sanctuary. As wolves live in packs, the different packs were fenced off, so all of the pictures sport a lot of chain-link. There were gray wolves and white wolves and even timber wolves. One wolf was the grandson of a wolf that starred in Dancing With Wolves. Anyway, the pictures can be viewed here. Below is a quick video of them feeding a pack (this to ensure the wolves could be seen by the tour group, which reminded me of the goat from Jurrasic Park). Enjoy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jTf09ES3cE[/youtube]