“Wow, Karel. You haven’t posted anything since Thursday, so you must’ve been writing tons on your NaNo novel, huh?”

You might think that. You’d be wrong, though. I wrote maybe 600 words, tops, on Thursday. Friday I didn’t so much as touch a text editor. That’s right, not one word was added to my count on Friday. Slacker, thy name is Karel.

So tonight I sat down and churned out about 5,000 words. That was after helping clean house for the big PDX NaNo Midway Party I proposed and am hosting tomorrow afternoon. So far I have about seven or eight of my fellow lunat– um, writers coming over, with several more surprise guests possible. It should be interesting, to say the least.

Most of my writing was done while Wendi and the kids went to see the Harry Potter movie. Wendi liked the movie, the kids liked the movie, and I got to hear about all of the good and bad bits for a while after they got home. And on the way to the store to get snacky goodness for tomorrow’s party. As if anyone remotely interested in seeing the new Harry Potter movie needed the Kerezman Family endorsement, mind you, but now you know what they thought of it.

No, I didn’t go. No, I don’t want to go. No, I really don’t need to see the new Harry Potter movie on the big screen. I’m saving my geeky fanboy energy for The Two Towers, thankyouverymuch. That, and I was way way behind on my NaNo word count (as previously mentioned), so staying home meant I had peace and quiet for several hours… and thus, no excuse not to produce lots and lots of silly words for my novel. Oh yeah, and I posted the third chapter of the day in its entirety as my latest excerpt. (Someone complained about the brevity of the previous excerpt. So there, Someone. Neener, neener.)

Lilith added links to both Mari and Wendi‘s online journals. This equals 100% of all greyduck.net websites making an appearance on her link list, just so you know. Am I cool or what? Okay, so actually Mari and Wendi are cool, but I can bask in their greatness.

Pardon me a moment while I bask.

Tomorrow evening… okay, so it’s Sunday already. After the party, then, I’ll post some sort of rambling recap of the PDX NaNo Midway Party. Until then, I invite you to read some novel excerpts. Please?

As part of the ongoing effort to find something I’m willing to pack for lunch, Wendi’s been buying some different flavors of the Campbell’s Chunky soups. It’s a great idea: Big can, pull-tab top, no water to add. I pack a can, a bowl, a spoon and some crackers and viola! As long as I’m near a microwave I’m set, right?

We started off with a couple of the chowders, most notably the Old Fashioned Potato Ham and the Baked Potato with Cheddar and Bacon Bits. Yum, good eatin’.

Today was the debut… and finale… of a new flavor in the cupboard. Chicken Broccoli Cheese and Potato. Based on the track record of Chunky soups so far, this seemed a no-brainer. Chicken and cheese in a potato soup? I could stand a little broccoli to get some chicken soup, right?

So I popped the top, poured full the bowl, covered appropriately for the microwave and keyed in the cooking time. After the two-minute stir I began to worry, as “cleaning” the spoon left my tastebuds a bit underwhelmed. When I pulled the bowl out and uncovered it after the last minute of cooking I knew something was horribly wrong.

The odor that greeted my nose as the steam fled the bowl was that of fresh vomit.

Let me state that again for effect.

A fresh can of Chunky soup smelled, when cooked, as though someone had barfed in my bowl.

Because I usually frown on wasting food, I still dipped my spoon in for a taste. My taste buds refused to veto the judgement of my olfactory passages. It didn’t taste bad, but it also didn’t taste good.

And so, into the conveniently-located toilet it went. Yay for my office being right across the hall from the restrooms. I am left with a sleeve of saltines as my sole lunch option, and with the scent of spew in the air that’s not much of an option yet. I’ll be drinking a lot of water, and I’ll be leaving the server room door open for a while. (You wouldn’t believe the gale-force winds out of that room. My office will smell like good old stale computer-room air in mere minutes.)

Don’t let this story deter you from trying the fine chowders, but steer way clear of Chicken Broccoli Cheese and Potato. This public service message brought to you by the letters M, T and V and by the numbers 0 and 1.

(Hint: It’s an anagram of sorts.)
Campbell’s Chunky

Heh. Styrofoam peanuts.

“It’s like they took a bit of a movie, put it in a box and filled the rest of the box with styrofoam peanuts. This scene, for instance, is a styrofoam peanut.” – Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Screaming Skull

And no, that quote probably isn’t exact. I’ll redact this post later, maybe, once I’ve got the wording straight. Anyway, on with the day’s events:

• Department Head meetings are now on Tuesdays. Still at 8:00 in the bloody damned morning, though. Needless to say I got up too bloody damned early today. Oh yeah, and the Summer 2002 ratings were released today. This is information only interesting to other radio people, I’m afraid.
  
• Mari wants a weblog/journal/thing. I’ve set one up for her, but you can’t see it yet. We’re waiting for DNS to get set up, then I’ll make some sort of big announcement. For the record, it’s running Movable Type. MT’s neat and all, but I don’t see myself switching this site any time soon. I’ve got far too much time and effort invested in Monaural Jerk, which I still think is a better system for techies like myself.
  
• In related news, I now know how to enable those Trackback things you’ve probably seen popping up all over the blogosphere. They’ll probably appear as if by magic at some point in the next couple of days on a greyduck.net near you. Stay tuned.
  
• A diet consisting solely of hot cocoa and Ritz crackers, coupled with sleep deprivation. This is the answer to the question, “Why are you so incoherent this evening, Karel?” Now stop asking me silly questions.
  
• This is damned funny. Note to self, add The People’s Republic of Seabrook to the Blogs of Note…
  
• Last and probably least, I spent a part of the day poking around on DeviantArt. I even posted a journal entry on my profile. Mostly, though, I was there to grab a bunch of cool new anime wallpapers. If you ask nicely, I’ll show them to you.