Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave

The new Dorkman website is up!!! You can find it at http://www.dorkmancometh.com/.

Let me know what you think, but be gentle.

You know how your arrows wound me.

A link to a new Dorkman-centered blog and message board can also be found there. As well as an email address for us.

A Pearce & Story writing website is also in the works.

Our intent is to migrate discussion on those topics to the appropriate web space so as not to overwhelm the Realm with nothing but P&S, P&S, P&S. Or else some of you will start to get P&S'ed.

Stop by our other sites and by all means INVITE YOUR FRIENDS.

Thanks for bearing with us in this busy time and look for some new general interest topics and maybe some guest posters here in the Realm.

Peace to all Realm dwellers.

Blank on a Blank

A coworker recently decided to get his jollies by having Samuel L. Jackson call people and tell them to go see the movie "Snakes on a Plane". Apparently you can do this pretty easily from the movie's website.

Anyway, it got a discussion started about how this movie may be breaking ground for a whole new genre of books and movies. The "Blank on/in/under/etc a Blank" genre. It's like million dollar Madlibs, and it's as easy as popping up a bag microwave popcorn to sell for 8 bucks.

Just pick two objects, your preposition of choice, add in a marginal acting talent, a smattering of extras, bake at 350, and then market the heck out of it.

Brilliant!! And there are so many potential combinations that you don't even have to worry about someone stealing your idea and beating you to the punch. And if they do, just swap out one of your three ingredients and you're golden again.

Some of our ideas so far:

Dingos in a Dirigible
Chiggers (Red Bugs for you non-southerners) in a Shopping Mall
Sabre-tooths at a Cheerleading Camp
Cheese with a Commode
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (doh! That one has been done)
Ferrets on a Ferris Wheel
Poop in a Punchbowl and a Swimming Pool
Post-hole diggers on a see-saw
Planes over a Snake

I'm sure that there are some obvious omissions. Give me yours (at least the PG-rated ones).

Who knows? Maybe Mark Hamill or Kevin Costner will be giving folks a ring to pimp your flick in two shakes of rattlesnake. Oooh! Snakes in a shake.

Books?? Festival?? We're there!!

This Labor Day weekend (1-3 September) Rich and I will be in Atlanta for the inaugural AJC Decatur Book Festival.

There will be food and beverages, live music, cooking demonstrations, fireworks... oh yeah, and books. But obviously best of all real live authors... like us!!

I know it makes you all goose pimply just thinking about it.

But hey, Dorkman will be hot off the presses, and we'll have some give-aways, too.

So, if you're in the Atlanta area (and if you're not, c'mon it's Labor weekend for crying out loud-- make special arrangements) drop by the OnStage Publishing booth to see us.

Check out the link above for more details and directions.

Tell Your Friends and Family and See You There!!

The Dorkman Cometh

Just a few more days until our novel, Dorkman, is released by OnStage Publishing. Stay tuned for more information and the address for the new Dorkman website!!

Here's a sneak peek at the cover art and the back-of-the-book blurb:


The last thing Cole Erickson needs right now is a distraction.

Improving his swing before baseball season and steeling his nerve to talk to the ravishing Ashley Knutson are all that matters. Unfortunately, he’s just made the cataclysmic mistake of speaking to a stranger-than-strange kid that everyone at Jackson Middle School calls:

Dorkman.

Spawned from a naturalistic humanitarian mother, Gordon "Dorkman" Dorfmueller lives in a bug- and cat-infested house, dresses like something a thrift store vomited, and acts like he just arrived from one of the comic book worlds he spends all of his time drawing. As far as Cole is concerned, Dorkman is a complete waste of space.

But Dorkman begins to follow him everywhere: his classes... home... even the bathroom in his quest to become Cole’s new best friend. Nothing seems to stop him. And Cole fears that his popularity and his chances with Ashley have just been flushed. Things couldn’t be worse.

That is, until Cole’s friends decide to take matters into their own hands and subject Dorkman to a series of escalating pranks that ultimately humiliate Gordon and change Cole's life forever.

Beware! The Dorkman cometh!

Dubai or Not To Buy, That is the Question

Ever dreamed of getting away from it all and relaxing on your own private island or going on a three hour tour and winding up with the Thurston Howells on an island named after you?

Well, wait no more. Just contact your realtor about the latest in pre-fabricated, double-wide islands from Dubai, the people who brought you... uhhh... actually this is the first thing they've brought you. But it's a doozy.

Click here for the listing.

Yawwwwn... Have I been sleeping long?

As the Crew Cuts and the Chords were wont to say in the '50's, "Life could be a dream, sh-boom".

And sometimes, I find myself sleepwalking through life, as if it were just that... a dream.

When suddenly, I wake up and realize that time and things, often important things like people, have passed me by.

It usually occurs when either circumstances surround me-- pressing in, threatening to strangle all of the joy out of living-- or at least it feels that way. Or when I get overly absorbed, obsessive even, about one aspect of my life whether its a leisure activity, a hobby, or an internal goal.

Then I just click off, check out, and go through the motions oblivious to the needs or feelings of those around me. This penchant was hammered home to me recently by the Adam Sandler masterpiece ironically or maybe not so ironically named, "Click".

I hopped into the theater expecting to baste in mindless, moronic slapstick and bathroom humor and instead was treated to a scathing, heart-wrenching indictment of my zone-out behavior. I suppose it is some consolation that I'm not alone, else why would they have made a movie about it, right?

But after my awakening comes like a cold splash of water, and I repent and resolve up and down not to repeat this pattern, it seems much more difficult in practical terms to prioritize and establish balance.

There are so many demands on our energy and time and just enough Type A over-achievers who act as though all can in fact be accomplished if you just try harder (the concept of trying harder is a rant for another post) that its much easier to just say, "Aww, screw it. I'll be over here taking another nap."

Anyway, I'm not sure I've got this thing licked yet, but for what its worth, I'm baaa-aaack. And my intention is to resurrect the Realm of Possibility with more of the witty, thought-provoking discussion and banter that many of you have come to expect.

So, if you're reading this, stop by occasionally. At least between your own naps.