My buddy Bob has been podcasting his book “Death by Cliché” and running a slice of Jonathan Coulton’s “Skullcrusher Mountain” during the credits at the end of each episode. This is acceptable use under the terms of the Creative Commons that Coulton uses instead of copyright, or so Bob tells me.

Today I got sick of hearing just the first verse and chorus, so I spent 99 cents on the song.

It’s 99 cents I wouldn’t have spent without repeated exposure. It’s only the third Jonathan Coulton song I’ve spent money on. It’s also my new favorite, displacing his “Still Alive” contribution to the Orange Box.

Moral of the story: people will pay for stuff that they can get for free. Not that anybody reading my blog doubts that. I’m making a living that way, after all.

Oh… favorite lyric from “Skullcrusher Mountain” (which you should at least LISTEN to, if not purchase outright):
“Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?”

There’s a Valentine’s Day sentiment we can all get behind, I’m sure. Just don’t use too many monkeys.

Before we start with this recipe, I’ve had one of these each day for the last two weeks and have lost about five pounds so far. Low-carbing doesn’t work for everybody, but I experimented a lot with diet and exercise recently, and only a return to lower-carb eating has had the right effect.

The recipe:

1 Mission Carb Balance tortilla — medium sized (the white ones). These have an “impact carb” count of about 10g.
1 to 2 tbsp tomato paste or pasta sauce. Pick your favorite.
about four to six ounces of good cheese. I used sliced Jarsburg (a sweet cheese reminiscent of emmentaler), queso quesadilla (think “mexican mozzarella”) and a shredded blend of jack and cheddar.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F. Toast the tortilla crisp in a skillet or on a griddle on the stove while the oven preheats. No oil. Do this dry. You want it to be as crispy and dark-golden as you can get it without burning it, and you don’t want to add “fried-food” chemicals to it.

Take the crisp-toasted tortilla and lay it on a baking stone or thick cookie sheet. Spread the tomato sauce on it. Layer the cheese on it. No skimping. The cheese should be thick. Put it in the oven, switch the oven to “BROIL” and set a timer for 6 minutes.

Do some dishes while you wait. 🙂

What emerges from the oven after six minutes will look, smell, and yes TASTE just like a thin-crust pizza, only with a super-thin crust. Oh, and the cheese will be far, far better than any pizza-chain cheese. Depending on the ingredients and the amount of cheese, this meal will set you back between 250 and 500 calories, and maybe 15g of carbohydrates.

Not low-carbing? Same recipe, use any old tortilla, and get decadent with the toppings. The only real trick here is getting the tortilla crispy enough to support finger-fooding the pizza wedges.

I just had one of these made with Jarsburg and a cranberry chevre — no sauce, and only those two cheeses. Really, really good.

I’m such a packrat.

There is at least 25 gigs of data on my hard drive(s) that is ancient, out-of-date, and for which I can imagine no possible future use. But just because I can’t imagine it doesn’t mean it’s not there, somewhere. Old email from my Novell days (including ancient correspondece with Schlock fans) tops the list…

I would like permission to throw all this away. PLEASE.

I’ll say it again: “I love my job.”

Make no mistake, it is a job, and it is a difficult one. For three weeks now I’ve been wondering what I was going to do with the storyline once The Longshoreman of The Apocalypse wraps up, which wrap-up I wrote three weeks ago. I haven’t scripted a word of comics since, because I don’t want to start digging a hole I can’t get out of.

I had kind of decided on a vignette format for the next book, with much shallower, shorter, faster story arcs. I had almost made up my mind to make them discontiguous, though my precious continuity would take a bit of beating. So I sat down and started scribbling vignette “mini-mission” ideas, and suddenly it came to me, that idea, that single piece of narrative cement that would hold the whole thing together.

No, I’m not going to tell you what it is.

But once *I* knew what it was I was able to re-scribble the vignettes into a cohesive plot that not only advances the overall continuity of the Schlockiverse (we’ll see Petey and the Fleetmind again) but also allows for character development, lots of BLAM, lots of different situations, and a cheerfully triumphant ending.

Oh, wait. I just gave away the ending.

Well, no. What I told you was more like saying “dinner will be followed by dessert, and the dessert will be very rich, and will include chocolate.” You’re still going to have to clean your plate, young man…