I’ve been fortunate enough to have met some of my favorite authors and musicians.  I’ve met Billy Corgan, Chuck Palahniuk, David Sedaris (twice!), and just last night Augusten Burroughs.  I love getting to see and actually talk to these people.  They’re always really nice and accommodating – signing your books, chatting with you for a few minutes, sometimes taking pictures with people, etc.

My problem is that I always seem to freeze up when it comes to having something to say to them when I get to the front of the line.  I don’t know if it’s some kind of star-struck thing.  I don’t think it is.  I think that mostly it’s that I tell myself that there’s nothing I could possibly say to them that they haven’t heard before.  And I know that’s not necessarily true, but what could I say in my minute or two of seeing them that would be worthy of their listening?  I can never come up with anything at the time.  Maybe I should start thinking about this stuff beforehand and write it down so I don’t forget and freeze up.

I always think of something as soon as I’m leaving though.  Like last night, I should have asked – indeed, wanted to ask – what advice he would give aspiring writers.  But I failed.

Well, next month I get to meet a couple more of my favorite authors, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and I’ll be sure to make sure I have my question written down so I don’t forget it this time.

UPDATE: Added a couple of pictures from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child reading at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

In no particular order:

1. Finding out my cousin didn’t like Forrest Gump, and in fact doesn’t like Tom Hanks.
2. Finding out my friend has never played Clue.
3. Witnessing two people get kicked out of a college classroom.
4. Completely understanding the implementation of OAuth.

If you’re interested in hearing the big band jazz ensemble in which I play trumpet (The Route 55 Jazz Orchestra), here are the mp3′s from our 2008 Winter concert.

Route 55 Jazz Orchestra – 2008 Winter Concert

Let me know what you think!

On January 13, 2008 I saw my 1000th movie, The Brothers Solomon.  Today, January 13th, 2009, I saw my 1130th movie, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.  If you do that math, that’s 130 unique movies seen in the last 366 days (2008 was a leap year); a new movie every 2.8 days.  Admittedly, I tend to accumulate things in a more marathon fashion rather than a regular viewing schedule.  It’s not uncommon for me to get three or four movies at once from Blockbuster and watch them the same day, or go to see all 14 movies in the theater in six days.

You may be saying to yourself, “That’s incredibly sad.  Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”  We can’t all have noble and philanthropic baby-seal-saving and homeless-shelter-building hobbies like you.  My only regret is that movie watching is an incredibly passive hobby to have.  Maybe in the future I’ll start offsetting my time spent movie watching with beach volleyball or croquet.

• @farrelley We use the ZF coding standard: http://tinyurl.com/o54k5 in reply to farrelley #
• Franklyn looks awesome! http://tinyurl.com/9mqcay Kind of V for Vendetta’esque #
• Smart car hits concrete headon at 70 MPH – http://tinyurl.com/a4v3wo #
• @aelst Ooo, that does sound like something I’d be interested in. I’ll add it to my list. in reply to aelst #
• President Bush just said, “Clearly, placing a Mission Accomplished banner on an aircraft carrier was a mistake.” Ya think? #
• @jason_austin It’d be awesome if he showed up with a 20 foot wide satellite dish to install next to your trampoline in your front year. in reply to jason_austin #
• @jason_austin Awesome, where’s the picture? in reply to jason_austin #
• @jason_austin OH NOES! in reply to jason_austin #
• @faasie I do in reply to faasie #
• @jason_austin Does it have to face South or something? in reply to jason_austin #
• @jason_austin I bet I know how you could fix that problem… How much do you hate TWC? Heh. in reply to jason_austin #
• Good article: Retweeting @BradleyHolt: Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering: http://short.ie/mtcq5c #
• @jthurtea I’m not, but that’s only because I get a ridiculously awesome price…otherwise I’d be going somewhere else too. Their DVR blows. in reply to jthurtea #
• @jason_austin @AlexTWC I’d be much happier with their shitty DVR operating system if they offered a cafeteria plan for selecting channels. in reply to jason_austin #
• Glad I’m not at the #ncsu_oit today…apparently it’s as hot as the surface of the sun there. #
• Holy crap, this guy on TV is geting his eyeballs tattooed!!!!!! #
• Creepy! This lady has the world’s smallest waist. She lives in Manteo. http://tinyurl.com/yevqnh #
• Holy…crap… Vengaboys – Boom, Boom, Boom is on 90′s on 9 #
• Jazz band practice #
• Goin to the gym #
• @eyaustin Pages FTW! in reply to eyaustin #
• @MrTweet @rohitbhargava Stage 4, working towards stage 5 in reply to MrTweet #

Is it just me or does the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich have an uncanny resemblance to Steve Carell?

My wife and I wanted to have a Futurama wedding cake for our wedding, so we contacted a local bakery, Edible Art, and had them take a crack at it.  I highly recommend Edible Art if you’re in within a few hours of Raleigh, NC.  We never got to see any sketches or anything before the reception, so we were a bit nervous about what it would look like.  But it turned out that they did a completely amazing job!  They even delivered it the three hours to the reception.  Here are a few pictures of the cake.

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This is the coolest pack of labels ever.  Check out the address on the sample label.

If anyone has been here recently – doubtful I’m sure – you might’ve noticed that I moved to WordPress (not the old comments yet though).  It’s a lot more awesome than anything I feel like taking the time to write, so here it is.  Hopefully it’ll help me focus more on writing rather than trying to maintain my own software, which is what I’m really looking for.  I’ve been using it for quite a while over at http://www.movie-recipes.com and have been very impressed.  You might need to resubscribe the RSS feed if you were one of the few people who were previously subscribed.

Also, we’re (Nathan Oliver) playing a show at the Soapbox in Wilmington tonight, and I came early just to bum around.  I went over to the Battleship U.S.S. North Carolina and here are a few pictures that I took.

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We discovered that Google Maps has street views of Raleigh now. Apparently in their quest to allow you to “drive” literally anywhere without leaving your house. They drove through our apartment complex, unbeknownst to me, and took pictures of it all. I figure it’s a Monday since I work from home on Mondays and that’s my car you see below in the screen cap from Google Maps.

Check it out here