Updates: Fiction, Christmas and Voting Results

WELL HELLO.

I know things have been relatively quiet around here, but I promise that Noiseless Chatter isn’t gradually becoming an ALF review blog. It’s just a matter of the holidays coming up, and with them a pilgrimage back to my ancestral home: New Jersey. The ALF reviews should keep coming as planned, because I’ve got a bunch of them locked and loaded, but other updates might be slightly more sporadic. Nevertheless, you should visit this site every day, and if you don’t see anything new, just re-read everything else I’ve ever posted. It will enrich you as a human being.

But anyway, some updates!

– The Lost Worlds of Power anthology is going to be awesome. I’m not exaggerating, either. It’s going to be like walking into your bathroom in the morning and finding an angel taking a shower, and you can see all of her breasts and everything. THAT GOOD. So far we’ve received five complete stories for potential inclusion, which isn’t bad considering that it was only announced about a month ago, and I didn’t expect many people to immediately quit their jobs and start writing terrible novelizations of NES games for free. Anyway, you do still have a little over two months…the deadline is January 31, 2014, and it’s looking more and more likely that we will have physical copies available for purchase after all. In short, this is going to be great. Get writing, and email me (or comment) with any questions you may have!

– Don’t forget the First Annual Noiseless Chatter Christmas Party! It will be held on the night of Monday, December 23rd, right here online, at this website. That’s Christmas Eve Eve, traditionally referred to as the holiest day of the year. I’ll provide more details as the date approaches, but what I’ll do is set up a chat room and host a live stream, so that we can all watch the ALF Christmas special together and share our hilarious suggestions of why Max Wright’s voice sounds that way. There will also be a few other surprises to stream, with the idea being that we all drink too much, say stupid things, and enjoy the company of everyone else who has nothing to do that night. I just made myself sad.

– Oh, and if the spirit moves you I have a wishlist at Amazon. Nobody is required or even expected to get me anything, but if you do feel like showing your appreciation for the site or contributing to my ongoing accumulation of pop culture ephemera, this is a good way to do it. If you decide not to get me anything there will be no hard feelings, and if you do decide to get me anything you won’t get any preferential treatment, except that every time you leave a comment here I’ll agree to reply with “LOL that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever read!!!” The choice is yours.

– Loyal reader Ridley asked about the voting results from a while back. I declared ALF the winner, but that’s only because it was clear that that show got the most votes, and also I never did care what you think. But I didn’t actually tabulate them, so…here are the results of that unofficial poll that meant nothing to anyone:

ALF (6)
The IT Crowd (2)
The Simpsons (2)
The Venture Bros. (2)
Perfect Strangers (2)
Roseanne (2)

Then there was a whole mess of shows that received only one vote each. So let that be a lesson to you: never ask what the results of any polls are, because they’re never interesting, period.

– And, finally, be sure to like Noiseless Chatter on Facebook. I post a lot more often there, simply because I can quickly share interesting links and bad jokes that way. You’ll love it. It will change you as a person.

So, yes, I’ll do my best to keep some of the best writing ever to grace the internet coming, but with the holidays ahead it might get a bit slower. Regardless, for all my posturing and / or ironic self-deprecation, I love you guys.

Seriously. When I started this site, I would have been amazed that there was even one person who bothered to read it. Then there was, and I would have been amazed if there were two. Now fast-forward to today, and there are nearly four people who visit this place regularly, and I couldn’t be happier. I really do appreciate everyone who stops by, leaves a comment, or emails me to say I’m an idiot. It means a lot, and I look forward to continuing to do whatever it is exactly that I do in 2014.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thank you all.

If you are reading this, it’s because I have lost my battle with my demons. It has been a very long battle. It was not a pleasant one. It was not a battle that was satisfying. It was a battle that I was doomed to lose at some point. I’ve said before that I need to win the fight against my demons every single day, but my demons only need to win it once. They came very close a few times in the past. Eventually, I got worn down enough that they won. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I tried. I tried very, very hard for a very, very long time. I cannot thank all of you enough. For all of my misfortune to have had to deal with mental health problems and neurological issues for so long, I’ve always been exceptionally fortunate — beyond all reason or explanation — to have a better audience than I’ve ever deserved. I’ve also consistently had better friends than I ever deserved. In a lot of ways, I’ve been very lucky. But I am so tired. I am so drained. I have fought every day ...
Read more

Better Call Saul Reviews: “Nippy” (season 6, episode 10)

Image
I got a chance last week to allude to my love of format breakers, and I had no idea that one was coming up next. “Nippy” is something I’ve been wondering about since season one: a full Gene episode. I don’t know if that’s anything that I had actively wished for, but the chance that we would get one, at some point, was always in the back of my mind. One obvious possibility was that it would serve as the final episode. I’m glad that that’s no longer quite as likely, but it’s near the very end, which is probably where it belongs. More so than most Better Call Saul episodes, discussing what happens would just feel like a summary, and I’m not keen on writing that, so this will probably be a pretty short review. I’m not entirely enamored of “Nippy,” but it certainly wasn’t bad. I think that it was about as good as a Gene episode could have been. I did enjoy a good few things about it. The idea that Gene wouldn’t actually be able to leave his life as Saul behind is a good one. W...
Read more

Better Call Saul Reviews: “Point and Shoot” (season 6, episode 8)

Image
Around the time we first met Eduardo, I mentioned that this show and Breaking Bad had portrayed the drug trade — this specific iteration of the drug trade, at least — as a sort of graceful dance. Deadly, yes. Horrific, yes. Massively awful for all involved, yes…but everybody had a role. Everybody understood what was expected of them and when. Nobody deviated because, as in a dance, deviation would lead to confusion. All of the participants relied on the others to follow the choreography. Everybody had a role, and part of the danger in deviation was that everything would crash down, for everybody. Deviations occurred, but they would never be the rule and would always be at the deviant’s own peril. It was in all of the dancers’ best interests to keep dancing. Eduardo showed up on Better Call Saul and immediately started treating it instead like a bar fight. Everybody makes their own rules. Throw a punch whenever you want. Smash a chair over this bystander. Burn down the pl...
Read more