Category Archives: General Nonsense

“Henchman” – a new series of stories

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Right. So. Carly and I talked about this idea, and I sort of just went with it. We hear all about the superheroes and supervillains, but we never really hear from the henchmen, the guys who make all of the magic happen (well, for anyone who doesn’t have a superpower).

Henchman – Author’s Note
Henchman – The Day Dave Subbed
Henchman – Randy the Tech #1A

Henchman – by Mike Williams
Author’s Note & Introduction

I bet you’re wondering why anyone would write a book about henchmen. Actually, I bet you’re looking at the cover of this book again and asking yourself “who the hell is ‘Mike Williams?’. There’s all kinds of books and TV shows and movies and comics and novels and action figures and pop culture when it comes to superheroes and supervillains. But let’s be honest and admit that you know nothing about how this semi-hidden culture actually operates.

For instance, did you know that superheroes have almost no henchmen? And yes, I’m counting the fact that the good guys (I call bullshit on this, by the way, but that’s for later) don’t call their helpers “henchmen.” So let’s say that Jake Donovan, the famous superhero detective, has his bombshell secretary Lila Donovan, and his two junior detective sniffers, Kyle & Donna. To you, they’re sidekicks, but to everyone in the business, they’re henchmen. Just because they work for superheros instead of supervillains doesn’t change the fact that they’re lackeys, grunts, handlers, and any number of things that all of the henchmen that work for supervillains are.

Anyway, superheroes rarely rely on henchmen to do their jobs, yet supervillains employ armies of men and women like me. Literally, in some cases, armies. Why? See? You’re already partially hooked.

 *

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“General Megatron: Defender of the Galaxy, Saviour of the Human Race, Hero of the Human Resistance” – Chapter 1

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Yay! A children’s story! There are no bad words in this, and it should be suitable for all of the ornery little Calvins in the world (yes, this is a bit of an ode to Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes).

CHAPTER ONE: The Doom Lord

 General Megatron heard the gnashing of teeth and froze in the middle of his latest scheme to escape the forced labor prison camp he’d been trapped in for more than six years. The roar of rage echoing through the twists and turns of the cell block’s corridors from below made him shiver. It was a noise that was far too familiar to his ears, one that he’d unfortunately encountered far too many times before. The creature’s heavy, clawed feet scraped and crashed into the floor in a succession of minor earthquakes, punctuated by the enraged bellowing coming from the galaxy’s most feared tyrant: The Doom Lord.

“SPACEMAN!!!” howled the monster as it reached the prison deck of the ship. “I’m coming for you!”
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Stop Rape Culture: Teach Your Sons That NO MEANS NO.

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Parents, teach your boys/young men that NO MEANS NO. Stop blaming women/victims.

It doesn’t matter how much she’s had to drink.
It doesn’t matter how short her skirt was.
It doesn’t matter how much of her tits were showing.
It doesn’t matter if she initially said yes then changed her mind.
It doesn’t matter about anything other than when she says no, it means STOP.

If you think this is a bunch of bullshit, imagine your mother, your sister, your wife or girlfriend, someone close to you being sexually assaulted, and tell me you still think rape isn’t a ‘big deal.’ Imagine the rage you’d feel, how you’d want to probably go murder the rapist, or at the least, put him in the hospital.

If you know this is going on and you choose to do nothing, you are just as guilty as the person committing the actual crime. Again, think of your mother, your grandmother, sister, wife, girlfriend, niece, any female that you are close to. You’d want to beat the shit out of someone for rape/sexual assault without even knowing if it was true or not when it involved someone you care about.

Why should someone you don’t know or don’t care about be subject to such a crime when you could have prevented it?

Fuck Patriarchy.

Fuck Patriarchy.

Teach your boys to not rape or sexually assault or even pressure anyone. Any other reply/answer to this other than “okay” means you trivialize women and the horrendous act of rape.

In fact, don’t counter with any other argument unless you want everyone to know that you support rape culture and refuse to teach your boys how to be real men instead of rapists.

How would you feel as a parent if your precious boy was arrested for rape/sexual assault? Would you blame it on the victim?

And while you’re at it, maybe teach them that if they see some shit like this going on, to STEP UP and be a man and put a fucking stop to it. Too many stories involve a bunch of dipshit dude-bros standing around egging someone on, or just not doing anything to stop it.

This isn’t society’s fault. This is the fault of parents not teaching their sons that this is an abhorrent crime that should NEVER be committed,  and it should NEVER be tolerated if they know it is happening.

God & Science Can Co-Exist

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I saw a meme today that said:

“Atheists say that no one can prove the existence of God, and they’re right, but no one can disprove that God exists.”

I agree completely, but we shouldn’t limit exposure to science which is tasked with answering hard questions by using faith to try to explain the universe around us.

If it comes to supernatural things, like Jesus rising from the Dead, God sending plagues, that’s all essential bible lore. Using Genesis to explain the creation of the universe, and being unbending, unyielding in the face of so much scientific evidence to cling to old beliefs that are meant to be a moral guide, not a history or science lesson, is detrimental to the advancement of humanity.

For me, science is a long-term research project that has the ultimate goal of proving whether or not God truly exists. Each advancement through science to make our lives better, like running, clean water, breathable air, shelter from extreme environments (Arizona / North Dakota haha), medical advancements to prolong our lives and to make our lives better, each one of these things is real, is tangible, and as a society, an entire civilization even, we shouldn’t put our fingers in our ears and chant “I’M NOT LISTENING!” just because some real and tangible conflicts with a long-held faith. Especially a faith that has been passed down for at least fifteen hundred years or more.

It’s okay to admit that while your faith has always taught one thing, science has proved it to be wrong, or maybe not even wrong, just immaterial. Human beings have to keep growing, to keep moving forward, or we’ll begin a decline that will keep humanity from reaching its full potential, which is to be one with God, and in a sense, to prove the existence of God.

If God truly did create the universe, why wouldn’t it be something like the Big Bang? The physical laws of the universe that we know and can prove (and yes, there are many we can’t prove yet, or don’t even know about) show that the Big Bang theory is very accurate. But my question is, who out of people who are reasonably intelligent, would think that God made the universe like we make things?

I can’t picture a supreme being going to the Home Depot to get planetary nebulae, hydrogen gas, quasars, and bringing it all back to the universe and start putting it together like he was building a house. Continue reading →

We Are All Responsible For Public Education

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(This is my response to some people in a Facebook thread who think their tax dollars shouldn’t be used to provide others with a public education)

My wife teaches in the BISD (Boise Independent School District). I’ve met hundreds of teachers. I’ve met maybe two out of hundreds that probably shouldn’t have been teaching kids (go figure, both were male coaches).

There aren’t many professions that work harder as a whole than teachers. When you take away from the public education system, you hurt teachers (boo hoo, right?). Teachers have this dreaded word they use, you might have heard it used in other instances, and that word is “attrition.”

Attrition in education is when the public school system continually gets underfunded, or talking heads on cable news shout as loud as they can how terrible teachers are, how rich they are, how lazy they are, how ineffective they are.

Attrition is when new teachers that went to college, passed all of the tests (and they aren’t easy, don’t ever let anyone tell you becoming a teacher is ‘easy’) and started their career in the public education system, KNOWING they were going to make very little money for the first ten years, and even after ten, they’d never be making these ridiculous numbers shouted by talking heads like “$100,000 a year! to work for nine months!”.

Attrition is when these new teachers begin to realize, some in their second year, some their fourth, each teacher is different, that as much as they love their career, it is no longer economically viable, nor is it a career that holds the prestige that it used to, and in a lot of cases, the politics at all levels, from the Statehouse down to the local county commissioners, is so negative that it makes these new teachers begin to dread having to deal with it on a daily basis. Continue reading →

My Wife Does Not Exist (and Yours Might Not Either!)

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My wife, Carly, is a nerd. I just read a discussion elsewhere from some ‘dude’ who claimed since he didn’t game with females and never saw them in any of the gaming stores or such, they didn’t actually exist. Apparently the ‘women’ online are just us dudes pretending to be women because it’s our fantasy or we just don’t like how it seems to be a one-sided sausage fest.

So since she doesn’t exist, then I guess she isn’t someone that will kick the %#@$@ out of you in Team Fortress 2 round after round (as a medic too, haha, you n00b).

There was never a time period of time where she would blow your ship up in Eve-Online, capture your life pod, then force you to pay a ransom because she was a feared lowsec pilot in a damn good pirate alliance. And if you didn’t pay it, you could kiss your life pod and all those precious, expensive implants goodbye. Hello clone vat!

She’s never been ruthless enough to repeatedly wreck her poor, defenseless spouse with shells or stupid stars in Mario Kart (all versions) just so she can always win. (Dr. Mario, Tetris, and Carcassonne also).

She’s not the type of enigma that knows what a ‘replicant’ is, as well as knows what cylons are, the Ark of the Covenant, Jimmy Olsen, Cortanna, wtf a ‘WAAAAAAAGH!’ banner is, what ‘chummer’ means, fell in love with Alistair, cheers Ripley on, still loves Ewoks (remember, she’s a she, so we can forgive her this one transgression), and still hates that Terry Goodkind spent almost 9 of the 12 books re-explaining the story EVERY SINGLE TIME. WE GET IT MR. GOODKIND. She, me, and three others never 5-manned Deathwing. Continue reading →

Writer’s Rant: Judging A Book By Its Cover

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So does anyone remember that old sci-fi movie “Ice Pirates”? One of those ‘so bad it’s good’ space comedies?

I’m kinda toying with a ‘pulp’ idea along those lines. Maybe a series of short novellas written in the pulp style but with modern science fiction ideas. Heck, maybe even some horror stuff too. Street gangs.

I can call it “Dollar Fiction” and then give it a subtitle like “Dollar Fiction: Ice Pirates #1” or something. “Dollar Fiction: Some Other Crap Here #3”. Better yet, I’ll deliberately make them all have plain covers that cost me nothing, and in the blurb, it will say something like “Dollar Fiction’s goal is to give you modern pulp at affordable prices. Our secondary goal is to prove that a book should never be judged by its cover.”

Because I’m never going to stop being annoyed that people still judge the contents of a book by what’s on the cover. It’s ridiculous. How the hell did anyone read some boring shit like “A Tale of Two Cities” when the covers were made of stretched leather or whatever DIDN’T have 4-color, hand-drawn, original artwork (or stock photos pasted together with some lettering on them)?

Have you ever seen what a book looked like before some dude (probably a dude in NYC) decided that paperbacks were easy to make and easy to put all kinds of crazy drawings on the cover? Yeah. Books covers were as artistic as a painted wall.
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Amtrak & The NHL: The Great American Hockey Road Trip

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So, crazy idea time… (and yes, Carly is coming with me, I simply couldn’t do this without her!)

I saw an article the other day where Amtrak has some kind of pilot program where they offer a “Writer’s Residency” which sort of translates to “you get to ride Amtrak anywhere they go and use the time to write a book.”

Awesome idea, right? I mean, who of you have actually ridden in a train? And if you have, was it just a commuter train, or did you take the long way around?

This got me thinking… I might be able to combine this into two most excellent, as my friends Bill & Ted would say,  lifelong dreams:

1. To travel the country via Amtrak and then write a non-fiction book about the history of trains in America and how they opened up the west, the boom and bust towns along the Amtrak lines, businesses that still rely on Amtrak passengers to survive, and the people who still ride the train (both vacation and commuter).

2. Specifically, to ride the Amtrak to all 30 cities that have an NHL hockey team (keep in mind, Canada will require riding VIA Rail, their version of Amtrak) and write a book about our experiences including: A short history of each city and their NHL team. Photos and interviews with fans, business owners affected by the team, and members of each team, including players, coaches, and executives.

Some of the things (besides money, we’ll get to that in a minute) that would make this trip-job a lot easier:

A. To coordinate with Amtrak (and VIA Rail in Canada) so they can help us plan out our trip, maximizing time at each location while also taking the most scenic routes, stopping at historical or otherwise interesting cities along the way. To help us connect with interesting or influential persons and businesses that have history with the train companies. I want to make this a story about how trains built America, how they’ve become ghosts to almost everyone outside of the Northeast, and how they still affect the lives of Americans (and Canadians!) around them.

Discounted or free (promo) tickets of course would free up a huge expense, but not necessary. The money saved would allow us to stay longer in each location, visit more locations along the way, and spend more time digging up history and interviewing persons of interest.

Bonus: I want to encourage EVERYONE to take a train trip once in their lives.

B. To coordinate with the NHL so we can purchase game tickets in each city (have them waiting for us at will-call to make things simple), help me get access to players/coaches/executives for interviews, and to point out some of the more interesting persons/businesses in each NHL city (such as lifelong fans, a hot dog vendor who has been there 25 years, things like that). I want to make this a human story, but a human story about our love of hockey.

As with Amtrak/VIA Rail, discounted or free tickets to the NHL games would also free up a huge expense, allowing us to visit more locations, spend more time in each city before moving on, interviewing more persons of interest.

So, I’ve decided to begin a Kickstarter project. To make all of this happen, I’ll need some kind of funding/backing. Since I don’t know anyone rich enough to fund such a book writing excursion, I’m going to attempt to get a Kickstarter fund of $50,000 to make this happen.

Sure, it’s a pipe dream and a long shot, but if I can make this happen, this will be possibly the most memorable time in our lives. The reason I am going to try and get a minimum of $50k for funding is that Carly will have to take a sabbatical from her job, which means we’ll need not only just enough to pay the normal, minimal (we are VERY frugal already) bills, but we’ll need to also purchase everything: train tickets, NHL game tickets, hotel rooms, food, rental cars, and a myriad of other expenses that come along with taking an extended trip.

$50,000 won’t cover everything, but it will cover all of the major expenses, and we’ll scrimp and save and hope to <favorite deity here> that I sell a lot of books between now and opening night of the 2014-2015 NHL season in October. If I can somehow convince Amtrak or VIA Rail or the NHL to help out, I can lower the Kickstarter fund goal significantly.

Once the Kickstarter project is live, I’ll link it. As my friends, I sincerely hope you will do me a huge favor and spread the word about this. The more eyes that see it, the better my chances of meeting the funding goals are reached, and that means I can write two books about this incredible journey that Carly and I will have had the chance to experience.

You Think You Know What Teachers Do, Right? Wrong.

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Washington Post

“The problem with teaching as a profession is that every single adult citizen of this country thinks that they know what teachers do. And they don’t. So they prescribe solutions, and they develop public policy, and they editorialize, and they politicize. And they don’t listen to those who do know. Those who could teach. The teachers.”

Disclaimer: My wonderful wife is a badass high school History/Human Geography (AP) teacher. I’m properly biased.

New Release – “Ability” (Omnibus Edition)

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“Ability” is finally released in an omnibus edition, available for $2.99 at Amazon and other e-tailers.

The end of the world began on YouTube…
Brian Carter wanted to create a superior recreational substance.
Garret Stewart wanted to create the next evolution in learning.
Derry Clarkson wanted her two best friends to see reason.
What happens when the perfect drug meets the perfect technology?

Ability is a dark urban tech-fantasy set in the near future.
Contains Parts I – III (complete)
Adult Language / Mature Themes
60,159 words