Bud Gott's Amazing Blog-O-Rama!

I've got a lot of favorites by Paul: "No More Lonely Nights," "Jet," "Live And Let Die," and I could go on and on. It's hard to pick just one favorite. "With A Little Luck" has been in my head for the past hour or so, so I guess that's my favorite of his today.

So, what's your favorite McCartney (or Wings) song(s)?

Hard to believe it's almost November. (Don't forget, the time changes this weekend.) Halloween is next Monday. I know people where I work will be dressing up in costumes, but I doubt I'll do it. If I dress up, I'm usually either a vampire or Zorro. Not the Gay Blade, just Zorro.

By the way, if you've never seen "Zorro, The Gay Blade," then you're missing out on a very funny movie. It's one of my favorite comedies.

Time for our weekly musical question...

Fleetwood Mac has always been one of my favorite groups. They've got so many great classic songs. Some of my favorites are:

"Gypsy" - I've always (and will always) have a crush on Stevie Nicks. This is one of my favorites of her songs with the band. Fantastic song. The video for it was also fantastic.

"Tusk" - A lot of people don't care for this one. Honestly, it took me years to like it. The lyrics don't make a lot of sense, but the song definitely jams.

"Songbird" - My favorite love song of all time. This song has got the best lyrics. If I ever get married, I want this song played as my "first dance" song.

So, what's your favorite song (or songs) by Fleetwood Mac?

So far it's looking pretty bad.

This is getting ridiculous. Enough is enough.

One of the cool things about the National Novel Writing Month website is that they have a lot of fun writing exercises there. One of them is called "Character Complete-A-Sentence." There's a list of opening words/phrases that you're supposed to start a sentence (or a few sentences) with. The idea is to create sentences that one of your fictional characters would say.

I enjoyed doing this. I used my private eye character Mike Gargas. He's sort of a smartass (sooo unlike myself.) It was fun working him into this exercise.

I was happy with how it turned out and wanted to share it here. The words in italics are the opening words that were given to us to use.

So, in the words of my private eye character, Mike Gargas:

There are two types of people in the world: sinners and non-sinners. The majority of the non-sinners are non-sinners just because they haven't reached their teenage years yet.

Time is not my friend. I have a tendency to always show up late for things. People say I'll even be late for my own funeral. If I can swing that, I will.

The thing about icebergs is that you don't see many of them in Indiana.

The last time I drank rum was, hey, what time is it now?

The most horrible feeling in the world is when you accidentally shoot someone you didn't mean to shoot. Man, that sucks.

Everything tastes like Chinese food. Maybe that's because right now I'm in a Chinese restaurant.

Unicorns can only be enjoyed as an entree if you put lots of salt and pepper on them. Try them sometime. They sort of taste like chicken.

Failure is for everyone and its something everyone needs once and awhile. If you're not occasionally failing, then you're not stretching yourself enough.

I'll never trust you to take off all my clothes and give me a full-body massage. Well, okay Sweetie, if you REALLY want to...

My middle name should be Ulysses. Then again, I'm not even sure if I'm spelling it right. Maybe I'm better off sticking with John as my middle name.

Vermillion is the color of...you know, I've got no idea what it's the color of.

Please don't make me look in a Crayola box for a vermillion crayon.

Women should only watch a football game with me if they truly like football. I don't want them to do it just for me. More importantly, I don't want to be bugged during games with stupid questions like, "Why isn't the ball round like a baseball and basketball?"

I woke up screaming. I had the dream again where Gary Coleman is chasing me around with a pitchfork. Man, I've got to stop watching "Different Strokes" reruns right before I go to bed.

Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows...yeah, that's great. Get me a beer.

Silence is like a spouse. Sometimes you want it there with you and sometimes you just wish it would go away.

Men could only look at her without touching her. Touching her cost more money.

The sky reminds me of Autumn. She was a chick I went sky-diving with once.

I'll have another and another and another. Don't slow down, Mr. Bartender.

My best friend doesn't think I think he's smart. What an idiot, he is.

Death could never stop Tupac's songs from getting played on the radio. Damn you, Death. Couldn't you have tried harder?

Jackson Browne has always been one of my favorite singers. He recently put out a new album. I don't have it yet, but I'm sure it'll eventually make it's way to my cd collection.

So, what's your favorite Jackson Browne song?

There are several that I love: "Somebody's Baby," "Running On Empty," "Tender Is The Night," and I could go on and on.

My favorite though is "The Load Out/Stay." I've always loved that one. I'd rank it in my Top Ten of all-time favorite songs by anyone.

If a female deer was a hermaphrodite, would her testicles be called "doe-nuts?"

Just wondering...

The last one I saw was "Just Like Heaven" starring Reese Witherspoon. Despite how popular she is, this was the first movie of hers that I've ever seen.

It was a decent movie. I'd go so far as to say it was good. I didn't like it as much as my date did, but it was enjoyable. Reese Witherspoon and the other actors were good and the story was compelling enough. It could have been better, but there are worse ways I could have killed two hours.

What was the last movie you saw? How'd you like it?

Other than working this weekend, I spent a lot of time writing. Some of you already know this, but I'm participating in a thing called National Novel Writing Month. Basically the deal is that you try to write a novel in just 30 days. You start on November 1st and have to be finished by November 30th. The novel has to contain a minimum of 50,000 words, which would make it close to 170 pages long.

Yeah, that's short for a novel, but you're not supposed to have the final draft done by November 30th. This is just the first draft. The contest-makers are very clear that what you write in November is more about quantity than quality. The idea is to write like crazy during the month and revise it later - if you choose to. If you don't choose to, that's also cool.

Since the actual writing of the novel isn't supposed to start until November 1st, I'm spending the next few weeks working on character bios, plot ideas, and things like that. (And, yeah, participants are allowed to do that.)

I'm having fun with it so far. What's also fun is spending time on the contest's website. There are all kinds of writing tips there. Plus, there are many forums in which you can exchange messages with other participants. One of the things I'm enjoying most there is a daily exercise called "Daily Word Prompt." What happens is, you're given a word for the day and you're supposed to write a story (or at least part of a story) which is inspired by that word. The catch though is that you're supposed to do it in no more than 15 minutes. When you're done, you post it on the site.

It gets the creative juices flowing and it's a LOT of fun.

I may, in the next week or so, post some of my "15 Minute Stories" on here. I'm not sure yet...

Anyway, if NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) sounds interesting to you, then check out their site here or at the link above.

If you've ever thought you might like to write a novel, but you just haven't gotten around to it, then this site is the place for you. Even if you can't finish it during November, then so what? At least you tried. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Plus, it's a blast - and it would be even more of a blast for me if one or two of my friends was doing it with me.

Go for it!

The "what's your favorite song by John Mellencamp" thing last week was kind of fun, so I'm going to do it with a different artist each week. As you can see from above, this week's question is:

What is your favorite song by The Monkees?

If you know me pretty well, you know I love The Monkees. It's hard for me to pick just one favorite song by them, but two of my favorites are "Sometime In The Morning" and "I'll Be Back Upon My Feet."

(P.S. to Sta: I bet I already know which one you're going to pick!)

I enjoy quotes. My friend Judy shared a great quote with me this morning and I'm going to pass it on to you:

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

I'm not sure who originally said it, but they sure were onto something there.

Today is my niece Amber's 5th birthday. Hard to believe it's already been five years since she came into our lives. She's such a fantastic little girl. My family is incredibly blessed and lucky to have her.

Happy Birthday, Amber. Uncle Buddy loves you a lot!