“If you have heard it or read it before, it is a cliche.
Remember, today’s great writing is tomorrow’s cliches.
Write tomorrow’s cliches.”
-John Bremner

I have been accused of using a bit too much cliche in my writing.
(and sadly, I tend to agree)
This quote stuck to me like a fresh booger sticks to your fingertip.
[not cliche]

~m

Expecting 1 – 2 feet of the white crap by 6PM tomorrow.
Doing the ‘happy’ dance . . .
[yeah, right]

~m

I have decided to take the blog out of  Maintenance Mode.
If folks want to read and comment, I say let it be.
Read! Read! Read!
I will be visiting occasionally but this will be it for anything new.
For the foreseeable future anyway.
The writing is going well but getting sick last week caused a serious writing hiccup.
I’m going back to my little secret place but will pop my head in now and again.
I thank all of you for the support and good wishes.
Over and out.

~m

The opposite of fast food:

A sad and horrible truth:

The truth about abduction:

A truth you never want to stumble upon in the old box of VCR tapes:
(*you never looked at Uncle Bill quite the same way after seeing him in a Catwoman costume)

And last but not least, speaking of StumbleUpon . . .
This little gem was sent to me by Moe as she knows and understands my total addiction and love of SU.
It’s always just one more click . . .

Please visit my fellow compadres of all things funny, weird and wonderful!!!!!

Moe

Morky

Grimm

Gem *will she or won’t she?  

And don’t forget about the CONTEST!
Comment often!

I wish I was being funny.
I’m in a nasty mood tonight, sorry.
Thomas Jefferson said it best when he said,

“A government BIG enough to give you everything you want, is STRONG enough to take everything you have.”

Fuck the government and all their high paying ‘no-show’ jobs, bullshit posts and meaningless rhetoric.
I have had it.
There is a backstory but you won’t read it here.
Christ in a sidecar . . .
And as far as blogs being taxed, just wait . . .
These assholes will eventually tax excess pubic hair, if  they get their way, and they always do.

God help us all.

It’s been obvious to me for sometime now that I have some personal issues regarding my blog.
I spoke with a close childhood friend the other night (who occasionally reads here @Smoke and Mirrors)
and he said, “I can tell you really love your blog.”
He went on to say why he thought that way and I had to agree.
I do love my little place here.
It’s home.
As always with me, there’s a dark side, a side only seen by others like me.
It’s with that in mind that I came up with 10 blogging issues that you may be able to relate to:

If you’ve ever:

1. Fallen asleep at your laptop (sitting up) while updating your plugins, theme, blogroll or widgets, you, my friend have issues.
2. Spent longer than the time it takes to cook an 18lb turkey while looking for that elusive ‘perfect’ theme, I hope you had on your blogging Depends (for the times when the bathroom just has to wait)
3. Posted a spam email because it struck you as oddly interesting and you just happened to find the perfect accompanying picture to go with it, it’s BCD, pal
   blogging compulsive disorder
4. Had a conversation with a close non-writing friend and somehow wound up explaining how Google Adsense works, for the love of God, get checked.
5. Seriously contemplated ordering bumperstickers, t-shirts and keychain beer openers with your URL on them, you need a support group.
6. Suffered intermittent bouts of insomnia due to one of your unpublished drafts that’s been leaving you with desperate feelings of artistic inadequacy, there’s a strait jacket waiting somewhere with your name already written on it.
7. Planned an upcoming summer vacation with more than one or two people on your blogroll, you’re justifiably insane. Your wireless mouse is constantly talking to you but at least you’re happy in your own little world. Eat a Snickers. You’re nuts anyway.
8. Been jealous that Firefox can remember all 847 of your blog-related/ FTP passwords when you can’t even remember your cell phone number. There’s a word for people like you. Can’t recall what it is but yeah, you. (and me, I guess)
9. Spoken to a Verizon rep in Tucson, Arizona to get your DSL fixed and somehow managed to slip in not only your blog name but your URL as well. Crazy people can be smooth sometimes.
10. Wondered what you did with your time before you became a blogger.

I can say that this blogging thing still makes me happy
and that I am blessed to have a wife that
understands that.
Some people aren’t that lucky.
She knows what makes me tick, I guess.
And though I may tick a bit erratically sometimes,
she ultimately understands.
I’m nuts, but at least I’m lucky.
Don’t get much better than that.

“Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen
Prettiest girl I ever seen
See her shake on the movie screen, blog on . . .”
BLOG ON.

I was given this award a few months ago by Annie, a writer I truly admire (and a dear friend).
She gave me the award saying this; “Michael at Smoke & Mirrors because his landscape is beautiful and touching, albeit often sad, and so very real that his words can touch as no others can.”
I have to apologize for being so damn late.
Thank you, WC.

Here are the rules for the winners:

I’m bestowing this honor on five bloggers that I feel are deserving in so very many ways.
They are all wonderful and have added so much colour and creativity to our cyberspatial community.

Spasmically Perfect

Spaz and I go way back to the early days.
A comment of hers left me speechless and I haven’t stopped visiting her since.
If you haven’t spent some time at this very special blog you are missing out on some wonderful stories, prose and the thoughts of one incredibly creative woman.

Enreal

Not sure how we linked up initially but I’m so very glad that we did.
A visit to this place is simply magical.
Her words are not unlike a wonderful session of yoga for the restless mind.
Trust me.

Grimm

What can I say about a guy like me that is totally in love with his wife and kids?
Grimm is a lighter and much funnier version of yours truly.
This is a guy that really deserves more recognition that what he gets.
I found Grimm on BlogExplosion a little while back and have been thoroughly entertained since.
I am proud and truly honoured to call him a friend.

Poetikat

A blog that makes you laugh, cry and give serious thought to the many serious questions regarding our lives.
Kat is a writer/poet that truly inspires me to be just a bit more, creatively speaking.
Though she has an avid following I had to give her this award.
Please stop by and say hi to Kat.

Smith

Although he’s the ultimate blogslacker, he writes very well and has a joyfully sardonic sense of humor.
His view on the world is uniquely his own and I love the fact that he can verbally smackdown
the most intellectual of assholes with the most succinct use of the English language known to man.
Did I say he writes well?
Please visit Smith.
Someone has to at least tell him he won an award . . .  (yeah, i’m a wisearse)

Congrats to all!



And, quite honestly, the scariest of all videos
I hate clowns.
Especially this one . . .
{& his gazillion grams of heart-killing saturated fat}
Thanks, Ron-bo.
Talk about a freekin’ monster.
Scarier than Bela Lugosi, IMHO . . .



Happy Halloween, folks!

Feels like invisible
no one can see me, but through me, never inside of me
a social quarantine, so absurd, so undeserved; a sucker punch to my internal notion of bravado
it’s the sudden realization of the parallel lines in my life that make it so
invisible . . .

Feels like invisible
not wanting the outside in, the vast shores of my life littered with too many complex intangibles,
opaque panes of cracking glass concealing inadequate truths, bruised skies of lies and the tattered directions to a place Google will never find, written on a discarded paper napkin,
the raindrops fall, rendering the Zhivago ink
invisible . . .

Feels like invisible
wounds, mainly self-inflicted; the worst and the thin, slicing kind
(they never heal and don’t bleed)
you’ll never see them, hemorrhaging my insides
but there’s a mirror in my mind, foggy and grey
and I reach out my hand and with my thumb, I slowly trace the letters:
i-n-v-i-s-i-b-l-e . . .
a shattered mosaic of my face stares back from deep within the dripping script;
the parallel lines of life and light making me a virtual prisoner, a blurred stranger in my own midst

Feels like invisible,
but not like everyday, but maybe for today,
it feels just like I do
invisible