Excited with a touch of disappointment.

This is a pretty big day for me...

"Rock Beats Paper" Cover-Art

As you can see, the cover-art for my novel is complete. I think it is kick-ass if I'm speaking truthfully. It was created by a mix of myself, my brother Bill, and Dave Cole an independent wrestler and artist out of New Haven, CT. He is a good friend and did awesome work on this cover. I'm excited as hell about the whole thing. My brother and I have spent long hours working on the interior design on the book. I think it looks amazing and professional. I'm really proud of the work we did and can't WAIT for you people to see it.
All I need now is the edited manuscripts back from the two people I have going through it, and I'll be able to update the book, and it'll be ready. Once it's ready I've decided I won't sell it right away, I wanna continue generating buzz, so I'll be doing some marketing stuff, sending the book out to people who have a large online following, in hopes they can give me a good review, and maybe even quotes I can throw onto the book.

The official release date of the book is going to be December 7th, 2010. However, the first 500 people to "Like" the book's official Facebook page (see the right panel of this site for a box that shows a minimized version of the page) Will get an access code to receive an ADVANCED, DISCOUNTED copy of the book. So Like the page and spread the word. I'm only going to release the advanced book ONCE there is 500 people.

What else is going on? Next week I will be working on the official site for the book, and I'm working on having a NEW blog site fully created by my brother and I. In other news I have registered a domain name for a new site that I want to launch. It's a entertainment site that covers...well...entertainment. I have a lot of cool ideas, and I'm jumping into it with little prep. So, we'll see how it goes.

OH! Let's talk about why I am disappointed. Well, with all of this chaos and work I'm putting into the novel I have finished. I have not been able to focus on NaNoWriMo, if you look to the right you can probably see that I've only finished 622 words. Terrible. I am disappointed that I am not able to focus on it. I doubt I'll reach the 50,000 word goal, but I love the concept of NaNoWriMo and look forward to fully participating next year, hopefully I won't be as busy.

Before I go, I'll leave you with some shows I think you should watch.

First, A&E's new show Teach: Tony Danza is AMAZING. For those of you who don't know, I'm working towards being able to begin my journey to High School English Teaching this coming spring. I'm very excited about it. In Teach, Tony Danza of "Who's The Boss" fame has decided to finally put his college degree to use. He enters the Philadelphia Public School system with the entire community having doubts and ripping him apart, saying the show is just a way to Jump Start his career. Though within the first 3 minutes, Danza is crying because he feels the pressure, and knows the weight that is on his shoulder's. He doesn't take the job lightly and he is very VERY passionate. The show is heartwarming and funny. Danza's charm is one-of-a-kind. Nothing is more clear than he WANTS to be there, and he WANTS to teach. There is no performing for the cameras, you can clearly see that Danza is genuine in everything he does, and his emotions run high. The pressure often brings him to tears, and his fellow faculty members are there to support him. The show is filled with interesting kids, heartwarming moments, and very dedicated teachers that show that the profession is far from dead. If this portrayal of what it's like to be an English teacher in urban schools, is at all accurate, I am more sure after watching just five episodes, than I ever was, that teaching is what I want to do. Teach: Tony Danza airs Fridays at 10/9c on A&E



The next show I'd like to talk about is "Running Russell Simmons on Oxygen. Yes, I do know that Oxygen is a network aimed towards women, but Running Russell is quite an awesome show. Sure it's concept is the same as so many of these other glam-job reality shows, but i think it's execution is what will set it apart. To truly enjoy RRS, I think you have to know a bit about the man Russell Simmons. I'm not going to be the one to tell you, that's what Wikipedia is for, however the show isn't JUST about Russell, what it's really about is the girls that run his day-to-day. The names are lost on me, and if this was something more official, I'd probably look them up, but the show just has so many elements to it. The first episode had me craving more, and I'm excited to watch more. Russell is a great man, he runs his business in a really efficient way, but he doesn't let his power go to his head, at least, not on the show. The first episode shows a situation in which a cleaning lady at Russell's house is getting the place ready for a fundraising event Russell is holding, it gets back to one of the main character's that the cleaning lady claimed she wasn't able to get a chalk-board cleaned. The woman who was responsible for making sure, nothing in the house gets ruined as a result of the party, immediately freaks out. Now, I was thinking "wtf? it's a chalkboard" well, it turns out that the chalkboard, and the content on it, was actually a valuable piece of art worth about $150,000 or something. The woman freaks out and runs up the stairs where Russell is meditating. I was freaking out thinking he was going to be pissed not only that the art was ruined but that she disturbed his meditating. She interrupts and you see Russell's eyes slowly open as if already prepared to handle bad news. She tells him what has happened, and you can almost immediately see sadness on his face, then a calm, and he tells her not to worry about it. I was so happy to see how relaxed he was. It was amazing, and I was so happy to see him react like that. It was THAT moment that I fell in love with RRS. It was amazing. Russell is a goofy guy who through all the chaos his life brings his assistants, he always tries to make sure they are relaxed and composed so that they don't deal with too much unnecessary stress. It's just good TV. Check this show out.