10 Unknown Facts about George Carlin

Ladies and Gentlemen, George Carlin would have been 72 had he not accepted that gig in Paradise last year, thinking it would be the town in California. We all know that Carlin was a comedian, but early in his life, he was also a radar technician in the Air Force and a disc jockey. Today, to celebrate his life and what he did for free speech (something very near to our heart here at The Truth of the World), we present to you ten things about George Carlin you didn't know.

10 Unknown Facts about George Carlin:

1. George Carlin could sqeeze seven shots out of a six-shooter.
2. Though most famous for his "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television," George Carlin was always a little disappointed that his "Seventy Thousand Words You Can Say on Television," also known as "George Carlin Reads the Dictionary," never caught on the same way.
3. George Carlin's sense of smell was 1,000 times stronger than most humans.
4. George Carlin's job of Radar Technician consisted of not only maintaining RADAR systems, but also maintaining Gary Burghoff.
   
5. George Carlin's bite had a 95% mortality rate.
6. George Carlin could sleep for three years straight, leading some to believe he isn't really dead.
7. George Carlin's book title Napalm and Silly Putty was meant to be a recipe for a substance that would turn iron into gold, but a publishing oversight left off the third ingredient.
8. According to George Carlin, the hardest thing about being a disc jockey is getting it to race other discs. Climbing on the disc's back is the easiest part.
9. George Carlin made a bet on the world series in the mid 1950s. The loser had to keep a beard for the rest of their lives. Carlin actually won the bet, but kept a beard anyway, just to rub in the fact that he could shave his any time he wanted.
10. George Carlin secretly filled in during a Beatles concert when George Harrison was sick with a cold. They figured no one would notice if you switched on George for another. They were right.

You have been informed.

10 Unknown Facts about Professional Writers

Ladies and Gentlemen, I just finished writing a short story whose concept I really love, but the prose doesn't really do it any justice. Such is the story of my life. Ever since I was a little kid, I've wanted to be a writer. I'm sure that isn't hard to believe considering how many Ten Facts Tuesdays I've done about writers (Wil Wheaton, Philip K. Dick, and Jim Butcher just to name a few). I almost did today's on Isaac Asimov, in part because of my secret desire that I can one day get something published in Analog. Don't get me wrong, his work is great, but I just finished writing something and I would like to see it published if I can ever get a solid draft out of it, so my mind is more on the magazine than the man right now. Regardless, I decided rather than share ten facts about another author this week, I would share ten facts about authors in general so that maybe you guys can get a glimmer of an idea why I want to be a writer, a professional writer, so very very much.

Ten Unknown Facts about Professional Writers

1. Professional writers are allowed to eat their dessert first if they like.
2. Professional writers can rewrite anything, even personal histories.
3. Professional writers are sixteen times more likely to earn an Eagle Talon High Five than non writers. 
4. Professional writers are all members of a super secret club like freemasonry only fun where they can go and hang out and watch TV and play games with other writers whenever they want. (When they're not under deadlines from their editors, that is)
5. Professional writers all have magic plates that hold 36% more food at buffets, meaning they have to make fewer trips down the crowded food lines.
6. Professional writers get DVRs that program themselves. Yup. It automatically knows they want to watch Lost.
7. Professional writers have access to a super secret formula of Diet Doctor Pepper that tastes even more like regular Doctor Pepper.
8. Professional writers' cars on average get an extra three miles to the gallon. 
9. Professional writers get into all the cons they want for free.
10. Professional writers can buy their eggs for seven cents apiece in Malta and sell them for five cents apiece and still make a profit.

Just so you know. Sure there are other benefits, like getting paid to share your ideas and your creations with the world, in knowing what you do makes other people happy. And yes, there are drawbacks. Deadlines. Pressure. Rewrites. The unpredictable nature of the work, the unreliability of the paychecks. Even so, it's always something I've wanted to do. Those ten perks> That's just icing on the cake.

You have been informed.

Memories of Murder

Ladies and Gentlemen, I don't know about you, but I really enjoy the TV show Law and Order, especially the original before there were a dozen law and order shows. However, something always struck me as odd when I watched the show. How were these gas station attendants and department store clerks always able to remember this one specific person a month or so later? They see hundreds if not thousands of people a day. By the time the police get to them, they've seen 10,000 customers or more, and yet they always have some vivid, but trivial memory of that person.

"Oh yeah, I remember her. She came in here and bought two tv dinners three weeks ago. One meatloaf and one macaroni. She paid with a five. I gave her two dollars and seventy-six cents back. Yeah, I remember her."

I can't dismiss this as bad fiction writing because everyone knows the show is based on real cases and real events. This leads me to one of two conclusions:

1. Working minimum wage cashier jobs helps develop memory recall in people.
2. When someone is about to die, those around them, particularly cashiers because they don't have to use as much of their brains at work so they develop psychic powers (as was proven in the book/movie Matilda), can sense it and though they can't identify what it is about this person, they know they should remember them.

Now, both I and my fiancee have worked our share of minimum wage jobs and we are both really absent minded. This, I feel, rules out the first conclusion regarding improved memory recall. Therefore, the latter conclusion must be true. Thus, to help the police and help save lives, if you work a minimum wage job and remember a customer the next day, chances are they've been murdered or will be murdered and you should phone the police with what you know immediately.

You have been informed.

10 Unknown Facts about Jim Butcher

Ladies and Gentlemen, today on Ten Facts Tuesday we dig deeper into the world of author Jim Butcher. Those of you unfamiliar with his work will of course know of him from the Harry Dresden novels, comics, and tv show. He is also the writer of the Codex Alera books and one Spider-Man novel. He's even married to a romance novelist. But here are a few things I hope you didn't know, because, well, if you did, I'd have to change the name of my column to Ten Barely Known Facts, and that doesn't have the same ring to it.

10 Unknown Facts about Jim Butcher:

1. Jim Butcher was once offered an Eagle Talon High Five, but declined because his hero J.R.R. Tolkien died before the practice was instituted and, to quote the eagles, "You can't high five a man who cannot raise his own arm. It's just a low five." He didn't want the honor if Tolkien didn't have one first. Eagles are currently debating changing their anti-posthumous ETHF stance.
2. Jim Butcher is a pretender.
3. Jim Butcher can butcher a bottle of Jim Beam like you wouldn't believe. He doesn't, but he can.
4. Jim Butcher is not a wizard per say, but he did figure out how to do magic. See List Item 2.
5. In the summer between high school and college, he worked as a London Chimney sweep just to see if they do dance, sing, and have animated escapades with mystical nannies. And to answer your question, yes. They do.
6. Jim Butcher goes antiquing on Saturdays, sometimes at the Smithsonian museum.
7. Jim Butcher once convinced NASA he was an astronaut to sneak about the international space station. See List Item 2.
8. Jim Butcher can read with his eyes shut. He learned this from the Cat in the Hat.
9. Jim Butcher doesn't understand the expression "he acts like his (feces) don't stink" because his, in fact, don't.
10. Jim Butcher was the inspiration for a Foo Fighters song.

He's an interesting guy, that Jim Butcher. I'm glad I could expand your knowledge of him just a little bit more. Until next time, 

You have been informed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy Thank the Native Americans for Sharing Their Food so the Pilgrims Wouldn't Die Day!

Ordinarily, on this day, I make a post saying I'm thankful for my friends and family and freedoms and education and stuff, but that's an every year thing, and I think by this point, it goes without saying. Likewise, I've already shared ten facts about this holiday, so further illuminating you on the subject would only give me less to say next year. So today, I'm going to express gratitude for the more unlikely things in my life that helped me get here.

Thank you, Pen-and-Paper RPGs, for introducing me to so many friends and for helping me develop my creativity and social skills growing up.

Thank you, Theatre for letting me be someone else for a while and for introducing me to my fiancee.

Thank you, Calvin and Hobbes, for telling me as I was growing up that it's ok to be smart and a little different.

Thank you, Good Books, for finally breaking me of the habit of literally walking around crying as a small child saying, "I'm bored. There's nothing to do!"

Thank you, Internet, for making it easy to keep in touch with old friends, learn more about new things, and watch amusing videos like this.

Thank you, Movie Theater Job, for giving me so much time to design board games on the clock when business was slow.

Thank you, Readers, for giving me a reason to keep researching.

I think that'll about do it for now. I have cooking to pretend to help with. Now go out, be thankful, eat food, spend time with your family and friends, andget to bed early in a combination of tryptophan overdose and getting ready for the Black Friday sales tomorrow. (except for readers abroad. I'm sorry. I don't think you guys have Black Friday sales tomorrow unless you shop from online American retailers.)

Happy Holidays.

You have been thanked.

This bodes poorly for the future...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I fear I have some terrible and terrifying news. You, as readers of this Illuminated blog, are certainly ever-vigilant against the hidden dangers of this world. Super villains, credit card fees, vampires, salmonella, spontaneous combustion. I regret to inform you that the leading threat against the status quo and every other quo besides has only become more dangerous. That's right. I'm talking about zombies.

As informed citizens, I trust you all own and have memorized The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. If you haven't committed its words to heart, you're just one more flesh-eating target when the time comes, and I will aim square for your head the second they bite you. That being said, those of you who have read it and learned its ways will no doubt usher in a new age of humanity after the inevitable zombie uprising. Even so, as Sun Tzu said, we must know our enemies. We have learned their ways.

They are learning ours.

While printing up glorious headshots of my friends and loved ones at Kinkos for target practice (I must get comfortable with blasting out their brains at a moment's notice), I happened to spot a discarded manuscript in the trash. I stole a quick glance at the title (attention to detail during the zombie apocalypse will be critical).

"Oh," I thought, "someone's been bootlegging The Zombie Survival Guide. Sure it's a little unethical, but think of the lives it will save."

Even so, beyond the legal issues of it being copied, something about it felt wrong to me. Something was a little... off... about it. And then it came to me. The title. I read it. Read it again. Read it closer. Took it out of the waste bin and stared in horrified disbelief. Someone had written The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection FOR the Living Dead.

I thumbed through frantically.

Chapter One: Know Your Enemy.
Page 3: "We know a great deal about humans, having all been in that sorrowful state at one time or another."
Page 7: "They're faster than us and they have better weapons, but we're nigh invulnerable and we scare them."

Chapter Two: Our Advantages
Page 26: "We can only be killed with a strong blow to the head, so wear a helmet!"
Page 28: "Remember, our senses do not depend on light; theirs do."

Chapter Three: General Human Hunting Strategy
Page 45: "Attack at night. They can't see as well as us, and the dark makes them frightened and superstitious."
Page 52: "Use psychological warfare tactics from history. Moan at all hours of the night. They won't sleep, they will mentally shaken by the sound of it, and they probably will not leave their shelters to come after you."
Page 53: "For heaven's sake, pick up your feet when you walk!"

On and on it went, detailing how to systematically pick us apart. I asked the clerk, a snotnosed college freshamn who was unaware of anything not on his iPod, about the manuscript. He told me some "smelly bum" came in and wanted to make a copy. He said the "bum" threw away the copy I was holding because the left margins were off. Guys like that are going to get us all killed. He had a zombie in his store and not only did he make no effort to destroy it, he allowed it to use his copier. He let it make duplicates of a book that could doom us all. I thought about shooting the kid in the head right there. It was only a matter of time before he goes zombie anyway, right? But I didn't. Something else was bothering me. Something big. Questions haunted me.

Where did it write this thing? Why did it need copies of this manuscript? Why would the margins be important?

And then it hit me.

I took another look at the manuscript. It all added up. The Courier New font, the double spacing. The margins were the key. One inch all around. The kid said the left margins were off. In standard manuscript format, all margins are one inch except the left one at one and a half. This zombie was looking for a publisher.

I don't normally advocate the burning of books, but so help me if this ever sees shelf space at Barnes and Noble, we're done for unless we make a bonfire so great they can see it from space and throw every copy on.

But then, maybe that was the plan after all. Book burnings are great for book sales. Somewhere out there, there is a zombie who either wants to destroy humanity or make a ton of money. Either way, I don't like it. Either way, we need to be ever mor cautious in our dealings with the undead.

You have been informed.