Kirk Douglas and the Seal (click for video)

Last night, I went to the Mindbridge Film Group, and we watched a great movie, Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, staring  Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre. For a film of its age, it’s weathered well, and I quite enjoyed it.

I was, however, a little surprised at the scene where Kirk Douglas gets a seal drunk. Now, I’m sure Disney did not actually get a seal intoxicated, but it still struck me as being a little off for an older Disney movie.

The scene reminded me of how much we’ve changed as a culture in the last 50 years. In addition to a drunk seal, everyone in the movie smoked like a chimney. Of course, this movie was filming during the same time I Love Lucy, a show where they drove home the idea that offering a cigarette was the only sophisticated way to greet a visitor. Six years after this movie came out, the Andy Griffith Show premiered, in which a regular recurring character was Otto, the lovable town drunk.

It amazes me that while some things once common have become so taboo, we’re currently going through a second sexual revolution, even here in Iowa, where coming out as gay or admitting you have the same kind of sexual interests and drives as the average person isn’t quite such a big deal anymore.

I remember back in 1994, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders answered a question by saying that masturbation was part of healthy human sexuality and an appropriate alternative to riskier sexual behaviors. President Clinton ended up firing her over this statement, only to later be held to to public scrutiny for not heeding her advice. Ironically, most of today’s young people agree with both Elder’s opinion that masturbation is healthy, and Clinton’s opinion that BJs don’t count.

Okay, this is a cone, not a con. It was the only picture I could find.

A few years ago, I started attending Science Fiction (but then again, some people like to call it Speculative Fiction SF conventions.

The first one I attended was my local ICON in Cedar Rapids, but the next  year, wanting to try out a few more, I attended DemiCon. I found DemiCon to be a blast. This year, I am now attending my third, and I’ve decided to be a panelist.

I am usually sitting at the back of the room, thinking people don’t want to hear what I have to say. However, during the cons I attended last year, I sat in on a couple panels where I thought I could have been a good contributor, so I decided it was time to pull the trigger.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping I’ll do a good job.

On Reddit today, I saw a post about the Twitter account that re-tweets people who tweet “working on my novel.”

I’m shocked and sickened by how new-media aware it is of me to blog about social aggregator post about a meta-twitter account. Also, when I finish this, I’m going to post it on Facebook. Maybe when I’m done with that, I’ll take a screenshot and put it on Pintrist while filming myself for Youtube. Foursquare. LinkedIn. Justin Bieber Forum. What was I talking about…?

The reason why I think this is interesting is “working on my novel” is what I’m supposed to be doing most of the time, including right now. When people talk to me and ask if I’m still working on my novel, the answer is yes. That’s what I do. There’s not much else. Seriously, it takes a lot of time.

Well, I guess I should go and… well, you know.

Treat others as you yourself would like to be treated is a piece of wisdom nearly as old as humanity itself. It’s also the key to doing business in the 21st century. And yes, authors, writing is a business just like any other. So, I’m going to tell you a story about my relationship with a company called Timbuk2.

Oh, and sorry, but this is going to sound like a commercial.

This is a Shagg Bag, a small pouch made for cameras and phones with velcro that can attach it to a strap or belt. My friend Joe bought a Shagg Bag from Timbuk2, but he ordered the wrong size. When he called explaining his mistake, they sent him one of the proper size and told him to keep the other one and pass it on to someone who could use it. He passed it on to men. And I took it, because, hey, free bag.

I’d had my Shagg Bag for a couple years when I decided to to all-in with Amazon, and buy my wife and I matching kindles. I had noticed how well the Shagg bag had worn, so I decided to buy Timbuk2 bags for our kindles. Again, I was impressed with the quality.

The other day, I borrowed a book from Catherine and I almost didn’t want to put it in my laptop bag, because my laptop bag likes to tear up the corners of paperbacks. Thinking about this, I wondered if Timbuk2 made anything that I could put paperbacks in, so I picked up one of these.

It’s an iPad sleeve, but I figured it would fit most of my paperbacks. However, when I received the sleeve, I was so impressed by how good it looked and how well it was constructed, that I decided to replace it. So, I started to look at, you guessed it, Timbuk2 laptop bags.

So finally, I end up here, with a new messenger bag on the way. Because of excellant customer service towards someone else, Timbuk2 has earned themselves a loyal customer.