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I’m about to tell you one of my favorite jokes. The very first time I heard this I thought it was the greatest piece of humor that had ever been conceived.

“There are 10 types of people in the world, those who know binary, those who don’t, and those who weren’t expecting a ternary joke.”

If you’re like, I would guess, ninety-nine percent of the people on the planet, you’re probably scratching your head now and saying, “Uhhhh . . . I don’t get it.” And that’s fine. Because not getting it is the entire point of today’s post.

As everybody knows, the best jokes are the ones you have to explain. So let’s look at the three things happening here:

Thing One

You very likely said “ten” when you saw the digits “10” in the opening line. However, the numbers 1 and 0 together like that only mean “ten” in the context of a base ten numbering system. In a base 12 system (remember “Hey Little Twelve Toes?“) “10” means twelve. In base 16, “10” means sixteen. Hold that thought.

Thing Two

There’s an old nerd joke, “There are 10 types of people in the world: those that know binary and those that don’t.” We nerds love this joke because we know that in binary (the ever-popular language of computers), the number “10” means two. For an example, I refer you to this post’s featured image, taken from the wonderful Binary Hand Dance video by the brilliant and entertaining Vi Hart.

Therefore, the old joke reads: “There are two types of people in the world: those that know binary and those that don’t.” Ha ha ha. Nerds.

Thing Three

In a base 3 counting system, “10” would then represent the number three, and that’s where this gets funny. Since we nerds have laughed at the binary joke for so long, it’s actually become a terrible cliche. Which is why I was completely caught off guard by the above-quoted joke. Whereas I was expecting the tired old, “There are 10 (i.e., two) types of people…” I instead got:

“There are 10 types of people in the world, those who know binary, those who don’t, and those who weren’t expecting a ternary joke.”

If I Haven’t Lost You Yet . . .

So as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m still trying to finish up this Cancer Book thing. I’ve been frantically working on it now for a while, sometimes for upwards of ten minutes each week. And although the topic is my Adventures with Cancer, it is, first and foremost, a Charlie book. It’s supposed to be funny and it’s supposed to entertain. The whole cancer thing is just fodder for material.

Let me highlight something in that last paragraph: “supposed to be funny.” One of the primary difficulties that any member of the humor industrial complex faces is the question: is this funny? Because as I’ve illustrated above, humor is absolutely all about context. No context. No funny. End of story.

When Dick van Dyke tripped over the ottoman, the audience had hundreds of contextual clues and the audience laughed. Without those clues, one might jump up in alarm and scream, “Is he okay?!”

When Dick van Dyke pretended to trip over the ottoman in later seasons, the audience had the context of the previous joke. Without that, his little sidestep had no meaning.

And if you’ve never seen two episodes of the Dick van Dyke show, then this illustration itself is completely meaningless.

So you can see the challenge.

As I write something I think might be funny, there’s always that nagging doubt: is it just me? Is this a “you had to be there” moment? I’m I telling ternary jokes? It’s really tough, because you only get one shot at it. I can’t publish the book, have a thousand people read it, gather feedback, and then do it all over again. That only worked for The Martian and is unlikely to be reproduced by me.

So when (and if) I ever get this done, I hope it works. But if for some reason it doesn’t, don’t worry. I’m sure there will be a series of blog posts explaining each piece of humor in laborious detail. Then we’ll all have a laugh, that’s for sure.

Like so many things in life, the Olympics this year have not met up to my expectations. Oh, I’m not talking about the games themselves. They’re getting along just fine. No, I mean my own personal expectations of the experience.

What I had in my head: me sitting in a room twenty hours a day, encased in a large comfy chair with endless snacks and drinks at hand, all in front of eight large screens simultaneously broadcasting different events in real time.

The reality: stuck at work for twenty hours a day trying to meet an upcoming deadline, catching tape-delayed snippets of events and constantly (and distractedly) remarking, “Wait, what just happened?” After which I back the DVR up ten seconds and try to piece together some thrill of victory or agony of defeat.

And speaking of the DVR, there’s definitely not enough space on it to record everything. And even if there was, I would likely finish watching the last recording just in time to record the opening ceremonies in Tokyo in 2020.

And speaking of Opening Ceremonies, while I do both enjoy and appreciate living in the United States, we’re also cursed with NBC as our primary source for viewing. Let me tell you, if you’re ever playing Trivial Pursuit and the question “What does NBC stand for?” comes up, the correct answer is Nothing But Commercials.

As expected, I didn’t get to see the Opening Ceremonies as they were being broadcast (on top of the tape delay itself) but instead started watching them on Saturday. I encased myself in a large comfy chair, got a small snack and a drink and happily exclaimed, “Ahhh! Here we go!”

The stadium grew dark, the buzz intensified as the crowd prepared to be wowed by the quadrennial spectacle that makes the Superbowl Halftime Show look like one of the plays The Little Rascals used to stage. The music began to build and the countdown began: “Dez, Nove, Oito, Sete, . . .” when suddenly Matt Lauer breaks in with, “That’s enough of that. We’ll be right back after this ten minute commercial break.”

As I continued to watch the ceremony, my irritation level with the commercial interruptions grew. Hey NBC, here’s an idea. If you’re so worried about declining viewership, maybe don’t give people a reason to walk away every five minutes.

I mean, sure, I get it. They paid eighty octillion dollars for the broadcast rights through the year 2872 and need to make some of that back somehow. But just how much will an advertiser pay when viewership finally falls to twelve bitter people?

But I digress.

The games themselves are going well, at least what I’ve seen. I’ve managed to squeeze in a little viewing time each day. Most of my favorite events haven’t even started yet, like track & field. Unlike the vast majority of people, gymnastics isn’t one of my favorites. That’s not to say I dislike it. I just like other things more.

And how about that medal count! Here are the standings as of today:

Team Gold Silver Bronze Total
The Good Place, starring Kristen Bell 7 2 0 9
Timeless, starring Goran Višnjić 6 0 2 8
This Is Us, starring everybody 4 3 1 8
Better Late Than Never, starring Grumpy Old Men 3 2 2 7

Whelp, gotta run. Time to get back to work. And if that ever lets up, I might just watch more of our Opening Ceremonies recording. I’m on schedule to be done with it on July 23, 2020.

Before starting, I just have to say I now regret my choice of blog post title. I now have a highly-related Andy Williams Christmas song stuck in my head. If you do too, then I’m also sorry about that. Life is full of risks.

Last week I posted an excerpt from my still-yet-unnamed and hopefully-soon-to-be-completed “cancer” book. It’s a pseudo-diary covering a period of time now four years in the past.

Four years.

It doesn’t seem possible. I must’ve blacked out and only recently returned to consciousness by Robin Williams administering experimental levels of L-Dopa on me. There’s no other explanation for it.

A big challenge about writing this book four years after-the-fact is simply remembering what I did back then. In fact, if it weren’t for this modern age we live in, I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it at all. Fortunately I have email, pictures, a Facebook timeline, and other digital footprints to help jog the old noggin.

One event, however, that I do not need any sort of help remembering happened four years ago this week. It’s the event I call the most wonderful time of the quadrennium. (That’s the word meaning a four-year period. Don’t say this blog never taught you anything.) What is this event, you might ask? Why, it’s the Olympics of course. They start today! Woo hoo!

Oddly enough, I don’t like sports. Not in the least bit. My brain lacks the wiring to even begin to comprehend why so many people put so much time and effort and emotion into it. Cheering for the home team, to me, sounds like: “The collection of sports people I most closely identify with crossed the line down there more often than the collection of sports people that you most closely identify with during the prescribed period of time. We are clearly ranked at the top of the complete list of collections of sports people! See how my livery reflects my support of my preferred collection of sports people!”

If it was just a matter of ignoring something I don’t like, no problem. But I pay for television, and now it’s a problem. Forty percent of my monthly cable programming costs (not the bill, just the programming costs) go to sports channels. Yep, that relatively small collection of channels that I’ve never once in my life clicked on has cost me a small bundle over the years.

But the Olympics. The Olympics are not Sports (with a capital “S”). No, Sports are highly organized entertainment enterprises that shell out billions of dollars to their top entertainers in order to make my cable bill go up. I have no interest in Sports.

Oh, but the Olympics. I’m not saying that billions aren’t behind shelled out here too. But something about hundreds and hundreds of amateur athletes competing on such a personal and (for the most part) not-for-profit level, is what really defines true athletic competition in my book. I get far, far more enjoyment out of watching swimmers or runners or paddlers or peddlers than some bored guy standing in the sun for hours, spitting tobacco and occasionally adjusting himself.

This is going to be a great couple weeks. Let the games begin.

Cancer Book is not the name of my next book. I don’t have a name for it yet. My hope was that a brilliant name would present itself by the time I got to the end. Well, I’ve gotten to the end, and so far: nada.

As you might’ve guessed by now, the book is all about one of my favorite topics: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I thought about calling it Peanut Butter and Jelly Book but that doesn’t grab the headlines the same way cancer does.

Okay, it is about cancer. It’s more or less the sequel to Diet Book in that I wrote it and it’s non-fiction and it’s (hopefully) an entertaining take on an unentertaining topic.

I decided to write it like a diary and in the present tense. This seemed like the right literary device since it helps the action unfold (if it can be called “action”). Status wise, the full structure is in place and I’d say a good sixty percent is in its final form. I need to flesh out the rest and we should be good to go.

At one point, I’d hoped to have this published in September. Well, that’s only a little more than a month away now, so I don’t think that’ll happen. October maybe? November? We’ll see.

In the meantime, here’s the first chapter. Rewind the clock to January 2012 and put yourself in my office chair where I’m writing a diary entry to myself. Yes. It’s just that exciting.

Read the Excerpt

Although my recent “What Would (Famous Author Person) Post” was meant for me to use Famous Author Person(s) as role models, this week I’d like to turn it around and talk about what an actual Famous Author Person would do. In this case, Neil Gaiman.

Here’s the situation: you’ve boarded a plane and you have about fifteen minutes left of internet access before the flight attendant puts your phone in a heavy duty shredder as a warning to others. What would you do?

  • Read a magazine?
  • Check your email?
  • Bemoan the passing of SkyMall since you can’t check prices on monogrammed waterproof electric travel kits anymore?
  • Write a book?

Well, if you’re Famous Author Person Neil Gaiman, the answer is: you tweet.

This past Sunday he decided to do an impromptu Q&A session and he managed to answer a veritable snowstorm of questions. I can’t even imagine what that would be like. For one, I only have seventeen Twitter followers. Which means it would take approximately forty-seven years for me to come up with just a light flurry of questions, let alone a storm.

Neil, on the other hand, has 2.43 million followers. And when he says, “Q&A time!” people actually ask questions.

I’ve culled the list down to my favorites and thought I’d share here for all to enjoy.

Q. Do you use any software/techniques to plan your writing or just pen and paper and a very good memory?
A. Pen and paper and an appalling memory.

Q. How do you deal with creative block?
A. I don’t think it’s a real thing. It’s a made-up thing.

Q. How do you juggle overlapping projects?
A. Awkwardly.

Q. When your mind jumps to “the next great idea”, how the hell do you stick to your original “great idea”
A. Most stories need more than one idea. And you get the best ideas while writing other things.

Q. How & where did you get the courage to start writing for a living?
A. I was hungry and had no other marketable skills.

Q. On average, how many drafts of a short story do you write?
A. Sometimes just one and a polish. In one case, eleven (Murder Mysteries)

Q. iPhone or Android?
A. iPhone, Android, and a Blackberry Passport I will be very very sad to give up.

Q. Do you always start writing a book at the beginning?
A. I do. And normally when I finish writing the book I go back and write a different beginning.

Q. What is the main difference it writing for children and writing for adults?
A. Children pay closer attention.

Q. How do you know when a book is finished?
A I don’t remember who said that Art is never finished, only abandoned. But they had a point.

Q. Are you more productive as a writer with pen and pad or on a keyboard?
A. Either as long as there is no wifi.

Q . Are you a pantser or a plotter?
A In @GRRMspeaking’s analogy, I’m a gardener and not an architect. But I like knowing things before I start.

Q. Have you written anything in the past that you now currently disagree or regret writing?
A. No. I’ve written things I wouldn’t write now, but that’s very different.

Q. Advice to self-doubting writers-in-training who got extremely rusty after a long time of not writing?
A. Write.

Q. And advice to someone who want to start writing?
A. Write.

Q. When’s the best time to write?
A. Now.

Q. I have a lot of ideas, and even more unfinished stories… How do I pick up the pencil from here?
A. Finish things.

They have shut the aircraft door and asked us to put our devices into airplane mode. Farewell lovely everybody. That was fun.

There’s a lot of good advice in there. Hopefully I take some of it. Otherwise, I’ll never hit that coveted “twenty followers” milestone in Twitter.

Tune in again next week for a post where I shall hopefully have more time and less writer’s block. That’s a bad combination.

I’m one of those people greatly concerned about time. Time is a precious, fleeting resource; so it’s safe to say I’m even more concerned about wasting it. Seven billion billion billion atoms decided to coagulate into me and, frankly, I have no idea how long they’ll stick together.

I’m not alone. Our species has been generally obsessed with the measuring and tracking of time since we first invented the clock. About thirty-five thousand years ago, a Cro-Magnon man named Grog assembled the very first one. He hung it on the communal cave wall and then asked the clan if anyone had any ideas what it might do (because he had no clear idea himself). “Track aurochs?” one man suggested. “Predict stars?” offered another. “Count times Thorg leave dirty dishes in sink?” offered Thorg’s wife, to everyone’s nodding and murmuring agreement.

Sadly, it would be another thirty-one thousand years before they figured out what the clock was really for. Up until that point, people measured time using silly things, such as daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.

Me? I measure time in productivity and if something is preventing me from being productive I become irritated and agitated. We had a busy year with the whole house move and every minute had to be poured into the task. That meant there was no time to cook, no time to start a new blog and write twenty new posts, and there was definitely no time to shave.

I’ve never been able to grow what I would consider a real beard. But as the weeks and months of move preparations ticked on, I thought, “Hmmm, I wonder.” So I let it go. Half voluntarily, half against my better judgment. Before I knew it, this happened.

Long beard photo

That’s long. I mean, I know it’s not ZZ Top long or anything. But it’s long for me. Here it is all poofed out. (I normally tried to keep it as flat as possible.)

Long beard photo

It was equal parts fun, interesting, and annoying. As it grew, it increasingly went from “just facial hair” to “conversation piece.” It was at the point, though, where people would point and whisper and the little children would run away in fright that I knew it was time to go.

But how to get rid of it? I mean, here’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something fun with it. After all, I’m not planning on going six-plus months without shaving again. Sadly, I let the opportunity go by. This is about the only interesting thing I tried:

Long beard photo

And when it was all over, I was back to my normal self:

Long beard photo

We had a good run, beard: you and me. A little longer and maybe we could’ve taken this show on the road. I can see it now: pressing my face into wet cement on Hollywood’s walk of stars.

Before I wrap up, one last picture. In a nod to the old Incredible Hulk television show, here’s my classic man-versus-monster split screen image. Enjoy.

Long beard photo

Did humans evolve from apes?

That has been one of the most hotly debated questions over the last one hundred and fifty-seven years. Touching on everything from religion to culture to politics to personal belief systems, this controversy ranks right up there with the best of them.

Both (or all) sides in the debate cite the piles of evidence they’ve collected over the decades, clearly and irrefutably supporting their particular view. And, as with any good debate, we witness hallowed truths clash in discomforting ways.

I won’t go into any details on the historical debate. Feel free to browse any one of the hundreds or thousands of good books on the topic. I’m only here today to express my dismay over the sheer volume of obvious and tangible evidence that goes completely overlooked: evidence that clearly and irrefutably supports my particular view.

On the one hand, it’s hard to look at the seven extant species of great apes and not see similarities. Faces, bodies, hands, fingers, muscles, blood and bones: it’s all there. It’s not as if humans are constructed exclusively out of rainbows, cinnamon, and platinum.

But on the other hand, let’s just take a quick walk through history. In no particular order we have: war, slavery, greed, ethnic cleansing, neglect, torture, drug trade, human trafficking, organized crime, apathy, terrorism, slaughter, persecution, genocide, revenge, domestic abuse, murder, selfishness. Sadly, that’s probably less than one percent of the complete list.

Oh sure, we have opposable thumbs and written language and space travel. But those things aren’t nearly enough to offset our penchant for hate, fear, and what’s increasingly feeling like inevitable self-destruction.

Did humans evolve from apes?

Heck, that’s about the easiest question ever posed.

Not yet.

From time to time I like to ask myself the question WWFAPD? This situation arises any time I get stuck on something, distracted by something, or otherwise find myself not working on the primary goal.

The specific Famous Author Person changes from time to time, mostly depending on whatever I’m reading at the time. That said, I definitely have a short list of “go to” authors to pick from:

  • E. B. White
  • A. A. Milne
  • P. L. Travers
  • H. P. Lovecraft
  • E. L. James

Wait a second. I just realized why I’ve never been able to finish a manuscript. It’s my stupid name! From henceforth, all my books shall be written by C. F. Hills. Now I can’t fail!

But I digress.

It should be noted that the above list is not my real list. I’ve never even read a single Mary Poppins book. No, I constructed the false list simply for humorous effect: primarily the juxtaposition of Lovecraft and James. Haha! Oh man, I just had a thought: that would be a fun mash-up. I bet it would go something like this:

After dinner they returned to Mr. Grey’s spacious home. The inky black darkness completely enveloped them as they made their way across the detestable grounds to the front entrance. Pale lights flickered in distant windows as the cold winds passed round them and through them like furtive ghosts. Cold and unseen disembodied hands grasped Anastasia Steele as she gazed, half-frightened, into Christian’s dark and brooding eyes: eyes as deep as the blasphemous pits of some nameless dread. In a macabre, shadowy voice like a distant and maddening drum-beat, Christian broke the vivid silence, “I long for you, Anastasia — you and your presumably reciprocally aching loins — just as the terrible and mindless winter longs for the forgotten and futile spring. Also, I’m kinda thirsty. Champagne, perhaps?

But I digress.

And “digress” is exactly why we’re here today. Because this is exactly the kind of point where I’d ask myself, “What Would (Famous Author Person) Do?” Would this person be wasting time digressing? Or would they just be, you know, writing?

I have this (quite wrong) perception that F. A. Person is perfect. F. A. Person only writes one draft. He or she typically writes it in a single sitting, sleeping on it for one evening, before firing it off to his or her agent right after corn flakes the next morning. The words flow from F. A. Person’s pen on to F. A. Person’s paper like a . . . uh . . . like a thing that flows.

Meanwhile, C. F. Hills comes up with an idea for a scene then promptly forgets it. A few minutes later he remembers it and then goes off to do some research. Twenty-seven days later, he emerges from Wikipedia with deep knowledge of volcanic and tectonic activity in the late Ordovician period when the Iapetus Ocean began to separate the paleocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica, and Avalonia. But he has no idea how that will exactly fit into the story he hasn’t yet written.

F. A. Person certainly wouldn’t waste time on Wikipedia.

C. F. Hills thinks doing NaNoWriMo might jump start his story. Or maybe joining a local writing group. Or an online writing community. Or maybe taking a college course about how to use adjectives correctly. But then he has a thought. The same thought he has over and over and over again:

What do White, Milne, Travers, Lovecraft, and James all have in common?

They never did NaNoWriMo or joined a writing group or signed up for Advanced Adjectives 401. No, they just sat down, put pen to paper, and their words flowed like . . . a river! I got it. A river is something that flows!

But I’m not going to let thoughts like these get me down. Because I’ve tattooed WWFAPD backwards on my forehead as a constant reminder of what I should be doing. No more digressions. No more distractions. I’m going to write like a river and make it happen.

Well, right after I finish Fifty Shades of Madness. I think I might be onto something there.

Back on March 18, I was trying and failing to hold it all together. As we frantically prepped to sell the old house in order to align the stars for a perfectly timed transition, many key aspects of my daily routine fell apart completely. “Cattywampus” is how I described it. The Featured Image on this blog post is what it looked like. I longed for the day where we’d finally repaired, sold, and moved out of the old house and completed, bought and moved into the new.

I’m happy to say that day has arrived.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed my homage to Steve Martin’s The Jerk last week. (Though, as the astute reader might have noticed, there’s a very fine literary line between “paying homage to” and “plagiarism.”) Knowing that the move was coming up (and that I’d most certainly be busy), I had already written about ninety percent of that post weeks ago. Then, as predicted, just before bed last Thursday, I thought, “Dang it! I have a post due tomorrow!”

I hadn’t set up my home office, computer or anything. (It’s now a week later, and I still haven’t.) So I popped open my phone, wrote up the last four percent of the post (leaving a full six percent unwritten), and clicked Publish. This might not sound like a huge feat, but you try finishing up a blog post on this:

Image of broken iPhone

But now that I’ve moved in, settled, and I’m getting my life back together, I thought it would be time to give you a proper home tour. So sit back, relax, and remember: please hold all questions until the end of the tour.

Up first we have Laura’s home office. It’s quite a bit smaller than what we used to have, but still has plenty of room for the essentials. Her old desk and a small sofa fit comfortably along either wall, while a window looks out over the north side of the lawn:

Image of stacks of moving boxes

Our last house had a dining room, but we never used it for that. The house before that also might’ve sorta had a dining room, but we definitely didn’t use it as such. So this time around we decided to use the dining room as a dining room. Here you can see we’ve decorated it with IKEA’s finest furniture, costing tens and tens of dollars:

Image of stacks of moving boxes

The kitchen walls, like the rest of the house, are painted light gray. This really makes the white, Shaker-style cabinets pop. An island in the middle holds the sink and dishwasher, while the oven and cook top are part of the surrounding counter system:

Image of stacks of moving boxes

The master bedroom is also smaller, but that’s good, as that means less room for clutter (in theory). Our old bed, end tables, and dresser came along and are fitting quite nicely into their new space:

Image of stacks of moving boxes

And the last stop on the tour, something I’ve wanted for twenty years now: my own room. I’m not going to call it a “man cave” since that typically drums up images of a Mini Sports Bar (complete with pool table, NFL paraphernalia framed and hung, and a wet bar). No, my “man cave” is going more for that “depressing author” look (complete with writing table, rejection letters framed and hung, and a recliner obtained from Craig’s List.) The new room is not quite done yet, but we’re pretty close:

Image of stacks of moving boxes

This concludes the tour. Please stay seated until the tram comes to a complete stop.

Are there any questions?

Last fall (on the old blog) I published several posts on our new house. Well, a lot has happened in the intervening months: not the least of which is construction getting completed. It was a long journey (and a journey from whose details I’ve mercifully spared you all) but now that we’ve arrived, I wanted to give everyone a virtual tour.

Long time readers of my blog will remember my dream of owning a big house on a hill:

You’ll also remember how I used to wish for a living room with a plaster lion in it from Mexico:

And how I always wanted a large twenty four seat dining table in a dining room with original oil paintings by Michelangelo and Rembrandt:

Remember how I always wanted a rotating bed with pink chiffon and zebra stripes?

And remember how I used to chit chat about always wanting a bathtub shaped like a clam?

And an office with orange and white stripes:

And remember how much I wanted an all red billiard room with a giant stuffed camel?

Remember how much I wanted a big backyard with Grecian statues, s-shaped hedges and three swimming pools?

Well, I got that too.

In fact, about the only thing that I wanted that I didn’t get was that new thermos. Well, that and the paddle ball. The thermos and the paddle ball.

And maybe this lamp . . .