Last week I introduced 3 local CDs and gave you multiple choice options to guess the names.

This week we’re back with 3 more amazing Lancaster County treasures, and a new twist on the game.

I’ll provide you with one word from the actual title of the CD, and you and your creativity can come up with the rest of the title.

Here we go…

The name of this album by international sensation Next of Kin includes the following word:

Livin’

The name of this album by supergroup Crossroads includes the following word:

Love

and finally…

The name of this album by the infamous Johnny Schrock includes the following word:

Old

Let’s see how close you can come…or how hard you can make me laugh.

Happy guessing!

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As some of you (and now all of you) know, I’ve been working on a book for over two years now. It has been a long, exhausting, and amazing process…and I am still right in the middle of it.

The book has changed and changed and changed again since I started working on it. Everything from the title to the subtitle to the format to the writing voice is different from when I began writing it in September 2007, and it is still a work in progress.

The good news is, I really feel like I’m getting closer. I feel like I’ve got the right title, subtitle, and format now. (and folks whose opinion I trust seem to agree). And I feel like my writing voice for this book is finally emerging. There’s still a ton of writing and rewriting left to do, but I’ve got my second wind and I’m focused on the finish.

What’s next, you ask? My goal is to get my polished proposal and sample chapters to the agent I’ve been speaking to before the end of the year (hopefully by the end of the month). If they are deemed ready and potentially salable , then we’ll move forward and try to get a book deal. If not, then I’ll either need to find a new agent, a new book idea, or a new reason to get up at 5:30am.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on with that. Now you know, whether you wanted to or not.

While we’re here I also have a favor to ask of you. I’ll be spending a majority of this weekend at a friend’s guest house just down the road, doing nothing but writing. By Saturday evening I’m going to be mentally exhausted and questioning my own sanity, and it would be nice to get some encouragement or something to make me laugh.

So here’s the deal. I’m not going to read ANY comments to this post until Saturday evening. Give me some encouragement, make me laugh, belittle me with soul-crushing insults, tell me I look great with Joel Osteen’s hair…whatever you like. I won’t read a thing until I’m on the verge of jabbing a quill into my temple.

If you’re game for it, leave me a comment now.

I don’t care what angle you take, just help me clear my mind for a few minutes.

PS…I know some folks have been having trouble leaving comments recently. Email me if your comments are being deleted automatically and I’ll do what I can to fix it.

I want to do something a little bit different on the blog today, if that’s okay with you.

A lot of you fine folks who read this blog have great blogs of your own, and I thought it would be fun for you guys to share those blogs with the rest of us. Personally, I know I’ve got a few of your blogs in my feed reader, but there’s a whole bunch I’ve never checked out before.

So in the comments section, tell us your name, where you live, your blog URL, and a brief description of what you try to do there.

It should look something like this…

Bryan Allain from Intercourse, PA

www.bryanallain.com

I try to write daily with humorous thoughts on life, faith, parenting, sports, and pop culture.

If you don’t have a blog, leave a comment anyway and tell us all about a blog you love that we should be reading. Always fun to see where people are reading from.

And after you leave a comment, take a few minutes to check out some of the blogs people have posted. You never know, you might be about to discover your new favorite blog.

No guilt and no shame. Just an opportunity for blatant self-promotion.

So go ahead, pimp your blog.

Last weekend I drove past a Karate studio and I cringed.

Then, in a moment of self-awareness I said, “Self, why did you just cringe as you drove by that Karate studio?”

I didn’t answer myself right away, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. And because you care, here’s what I’ve come up with.

The 5 Problems I Have with Karate

1. The Studio – Not sure if I’ve ever actually been in a Karate Studio, but I’m 100% sure it smells like sweaty feet. It has to, right? Plus, every Karate studio I’ve seen in the movies has lots of mirrors, windows, and pictures of past champions from their dojo. Wait, is “dojo” a Karate word? Is “studio” even a Karate word? I have no idea. All I know is that I’ve never driven past a Karate place and thought, “I desperately want to be inside there.”

2. The Participants – Please don’t take this the wrong way, Karate people. I promise I’m not judging you with malicious intent. It’s just that growing up I don’t remember one person I ever considered being “cool” being involved in Karate. Were you cool when you were a kid, dear reader? Then you probably weren’t in Karate, were you?

Look, I’m not saying that ‘coolness’ among your junior high peers is something worth striving for…it’s just that the cool kids never took Karate.

3. The Outifts – Similar to point number one, I can’t say I ever looked at someone wearing the white robe and colored belt and thought to myself, “Man, do i want to be wearing that!” The closest I came to thinking that was at the end of Karate Kid 1, but even then I was like, “nah, still don’t want to wear a glorified bathrobe out in public”.

4. The Promotions - Congratulations! You spent months and months going to practice, fighting with other people, and letting a 40-year old guy with smelly feet yell at you for 6 hours a week. What do you get for all that? You get to exchange your white belt for a yellow one! Ooh, where do I sign up?

5. The Self-Defense Theory – The biggest problem I had with Karate people was that you couldn’t really make fun of them for being in Karate because they knew 6 different ways to rip your shoulder out of its socket. Sure, they told you that they were only allowed to use it in self-defense, that they had taken some oath or something, but we all knew the truth. They wanted nothing more than to be provoked so they could try and sweep your leg and crack your sternum like a piece of plywood.

But like I said, you couldn’t really accuse them of this or you risked catching a smelly foot in your temple.

So, what are your thoughts on the whole Karate thing?

Any of you Karate folks want to stand up for yourself, or are you already on your way over to my house to try and kill me?

Leave a roundhouse kick in the comments…

Last Friday I introduced a new game, in which you guess the name of the local CD for sale at a grocery store near my house.

I don’t think anyone chose all 3 correctly in the comments, though there were some pretty funny guesses.

Here’s the actual CD names:

The correct name of this album by The Schmidts & First Love is…

b. Yodeling By Request

But let’s be honest here, has anyone EVER requested yodeling in their life?

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no track list because it was an empty CD.

—

The correct name of this album by Lena Mullet is…

a. I’ll Meet You in the Morning

Though I think a more appropriate title would be…

“I’ll meet you in the morning with a huge wet spot on my right side from the dew.”

—

Finally, the name of this album by Third Dimension is…

b. Wildwood Flower

Here’s the thing. I’m sure the man on the cover is a nice fellow, but really???

If this cover featured a 20 year old guy in the middle,

and I tried to Photoshop in the most ill-fitted replacement for him,

THIS is exactly what I would have been shooting for.

(and no way would I have come up with something half this good. It’s amazing.)

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More Guess the CD names coming on Friday.

Last week I asked you, the readers, 3 questions:

1. Heads or Tails?
2. Do you sit across from or beside your sweetie at a restaurant?
3. Are you a morning person or night person?

We had 50 responses…here’s how the results broke down:

69% of you like to call heads, only 31% call tails.

65% of you would rather sit beside your sweetie, 35% prefer to sit across.

54% of you are night owls, 46% are morning people.

What does it all mean? I have no idea.

Here’s how each group shook out:

Heads-Beside-Night (Ben, JMJ, Katdish, Helen, Notofthisworld, Janelle, Katie, Jeff, BenofB&J, Spearle)

This was the most popular choice, so you all can stay up late, sit beside each other, and talk about how it feels to be in the majority.

Heads-Across-Morning (me, Matt, indescribable13, Michael, Bill B, Austin, Tudy, and Jenni)

This was the group I fell into, which means it’s the bestest.

Heads-Beside-Morning (Faye, Glynn, dustyken, wvpv, Juliebelle, Erin, Patty, and Staci)

The top 3 most popular responses all included “heads”. Clearly it is the appropriate choice to make in all coin flip situations.

Tails-Beside-Night (claygirlsings, SM, TJ, Zac, Chuck, Lee, DTDorrin)

Our first group of “tails” folks. Like the majority, you guys also like to go out for late night Waffle House runs and sit beside your guy/girl while you pound smothered/covered hash browns.

Heads-Across-Night (AymieJoi, Morgan, Lacey, Alex, Nicky)

If it wasn’t for Alex, this whole subset of respondents would be girls. Actually, maybe Alex is a girl. Let’s pretend she is.

Tails-Beside-Morning (Kelly, Kristen, Andrea, Pete)

When y’all are out late at night feeling sorry for yourselves because you like to call “tails”, and you start to fall asleep because you’re morning people, do you just lean over and sleep on your boo? I bet you do.

Tails-Across-Night (Jon, Tim M)

I guess you guys aren’t in danger of falling asleep after midnight, so you enjoy the freedom of not needing a shoulder to sleep on. Good for you.

Tails-Across-Morning (Lance)

Good ole Lance is up early calling tails with no one sitting next to him in his booth. Unfortunately, no one is sitting across from him either. He was the only one to pick these 3 answers.

The People who Like to be Difficult (Scott, Peter P, Nancy, savinggrc, Hannah)

3 simple questions, and yet you folks couldn’t give me 3 simple answers. I hope it was worth it. (I’m sure it was.)

Thanks for playing along everyone, I’m sure we’ll do that again!

Last night Parker and I were in a grocery store that has a rather extensive section of local music, and when I came across it I was stopped in my tracks. Literally. Between the CD covers, the band names, the album names, the hairdos, and the outfits, I knew I had to share the love with the rest of the world.

So we’re debuting a new contest that will run every Friday for the next few weeks. I’ll give you the CD covers for 3 of these local gems along with 4 possible names. Your job is to guess the actual name of the album.

I have no idea if these are available online or not, but no Googling or cheating. That would take the fun out of it, and besides, there’s no prizes involved for being right anyway. Just the thrill of knowing you are in touch with your local Lancaster County Mennonite music scene.

UPDATE: If you don’t like the available choices, please submit your own album name under choice ‘e’.

Here we go…

The name of this album by The Schmidts & First Love is…

a. We Love Hats and Beards

b. Yodeling By Request

c. All For the Glory

d. Go Tell it on the Mountain

e. _________________________

The name of this album by Lena Mullet is…

a. I’ll Meet You in the Morning

b. I’ll Fly Away Oh Glory

c. I’ll Join With Creation and Praise

d. I’ll Have Grass Stains on this Lavender Outift

e. _______________________________

(ps…don’t miss at the very bottom that the CD includes harmonies by Amos Mullet Jr.)

The name of this album by Third Dimension is…

a. Wild Things

b. Wildwood Flower

c. Lily of the Valley

d. Valley Songs

e. ____________________________

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UPDATE: here’s the answers

A few weeks ago we all shared some things we DIDN’T support.

This time we’ll flip it around.

in no particular order, here’s a few things that have my FULL support…

+ more instant replay in baseball

+ bbq chicken pizza (especially from Peace a Pizza)

+ Garnier Fructis Extra Strong hair gel

+ The Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials.

+ whoever is playing the Yankees

+ wearing V-necks (as long as they stay at or above nip height)

+ circus peanuts

+ The Red Zone Channel on DirecTV

+ Martin guitars, D’Addario strings, and Dunlop 0.60 nylon picks

+ straight leg jeans

+ unscented deodorant/antiperspirant

+ loose leaf tea from Teavana

+ getting up early to write

+ World Series games starting at 8pm EST

+ curly fries

+ having 4 Fantasy Football teams (keeps you from caring about any one too much)

+ The B.S. Report podcast from ESPN

+ new worship music from Fee, Aaron Keyes, and Jared Anderson.

+ coffee in the morning

—

What about you?

Want to give your stamp of approval to something or someone?

Here’s your chance.

Every once in a while I come up with a few words that should be a part of our everyday lexicon.

These are a few of those words…

Taggled \TAG-ulled\, adjective

Definition: When your shirt tag is sticking out.

In a sentence: I would totally ask that girl out, but her t-shirt is taggled and it’s making me nauseous.

First Known Usage: In an original draft of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet does not drink the poison because Romeo’s puffy jacket is taggled. Romeo awakes to find a disgusted Juliet leaving the cemetery, and he convinces her to take him back on the promise that he will cut all the tags out of his shirts and jackets. They have 6 kids and start a family business selling daggers.

In another Sentence: It wasn’t until Jim’s t-shirt became taggled that they realized his fortune was a farce. That was not an original Diesel t-shirt. It was a Hanes with an iron-on logo.

Repall \ree-PAHL or reh-PAHL\, verb

Definition: To reply to a mass email by replying to all instead of just to the person who sent it.

In a sentence: Mark was hesitant to send out the critical email to all of his staff. He knew there were a few repallers on the list who might share sensitive information with the wrong people in their careless reply.

First Known Usage: One of the first emails Al Gore sent after inventing the internet was to the cast of Cheers to see if they could all come to his place for a New Year’s party. When George Wendt replied to all, saying he would be laid up over the holidays on account of genital surgery, Kelsey Grammer responded “TMI George. No one likes a repaller.”

Little Known Fact: Roughly 3,000 people each year in the U.S. lose their job as a direct result of repalling.

Smake \smayk\, verb

Definition: Fake smoking. The act of smoking cigarettes not because you like them or because you’re addicted, but for some other benefit.

In a sentence: Amy showed off her cigs every chance she could, but she only smaked 2 or 3 per week. For her it wasn’t about the nicotine, it was about letting the world know how rebellious and cool she was.

First Known Usage: It is thought that Aristotle would smake on occasion because a young woman he was smitten with enjoyed smoking at the park he often frequented.

In another Sentence: Jeff hated the bad breath and the increased chance of getting lung cancer, but he still smaked every day for the 15-minute breaks he got every hour.

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All comments to this post MUST include one of our 3 new words or they will be deleted and sent to comment Sheol.

Author: Donald Miller

Book Name: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

I’m Glad it Wasn’t Called: Let Story Guide You: Why some lives make sense and others don’t, which was the original title for the book when Don first conceived it. (I even have the original cover art for the book, which I’ll show you at the end of the post.) I’m also glad it wasn’t called Auteur: Why some lives make sense and others don’t, which was another title they were throwing around back in the Fall of 2007.

Book Synopsis in Twitteresque 140 characters or less: While writing a movie based on his stories, Don discovers that the same elements that make up a good story, also make a good life.

Where I Bought It: Got it at a bookstore in King of Prussia, PA. (though I should note that I didn’t end up purchasing the one I bit. So somewhere there’s a copy of this book with my dental records all over it.)

Paid for With: Visa. I’ve always been a Visa guy and not a Mastercard guy. No idea why.

How Long it Took Me to Read: Not long. I read the first 40 pages in an airplane in Microsoft Word since someone had sent me a pre-release illegal copy (shh, don’t tell anyone). After I bought the book a few weeks later I read the whole thing in about a week.

Who I WOULD NOT recommend this book to: Someone on their death bed. It’s pretty inconsiderate to ask someone who’s about to die to read a book about writing a better story with their life. It’s downright rude, actually.

Who I WOULD recommend this book to: Just about everyone. Whether you’re chasing your dreams, trying to figure out what your dreams are, or enjoying the dreams you’ve caught, there’s something in here for you.

What I used for a bookmark: A candy corn. Totally screwed up the book’s binding.

What were some interesting true stories from the book: Don’s story about finding and meeting his father was huge. As you get to the end of it, you’re like, “oh crap, my eyes are about to get watery, aren’t they?” and then it’s too late. It was also fascinating to read about Don’s failed relationship that he and his fiancee broke off. Not just because it’s Don, but because rarely do successful Christian authors write about their failed relationships.

What were some interesting true stories NOT from the book: I got to hang out with Don and Susan Isaacs on their tour bus the other day, which was a lot of fun. They’re just as kind in person as they are engaging on stage, but I’m sure you figured that. Unfortunately Don was not able to put the transcript of our riveting 20-minute conversation into the book because it happened a month after the book was released. Maybe the second printing?

What was the 1 thing I’ll take from the book: I’m gonna cheat and give you 3 things. #1 is that when a character doesn’t have a good ambition, he is not in a good story. If all I want to be is a successful writer, who cares? If I’m striving to be a good father and husband who loves those around him, now we’re getting somewhere. #2 is that this really isn’t about us. God is not a supporting character in my story. This is God’s story, and I play a part in it. Changes your perspective on things. #3 is that the climax of the Christian’s story is not when they accept Christ as savior. Because after that point there is still much conflict and heartache. No, the big scene in Act 3 when it all comes together is at the wedding feast of the Lamb in heaven. Conflict here on earth isn’t against God’s will for us. He actually uses it to shape and change us on this side of eternity.

What I learned from this book that I will apply to my next book: A good title is a good title no matter where it comes from. If you’re wondering where “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” comes from, it’s from a line in the book that you might have not even noticed, had it not been the inspiration for the book’s name. A memorable title is HUGE (and I think I finally have one for the book I’m working on…maybe.)

Expectations Going In: It’s Don Miller, so the expectations were very high.

Cannarf Rating: Despite my high expectations, the book still was an unexpected surprise. I had heard Don speak about Story before, so I wondered if some of the material would feel old and stale. On the contrary, the stories he injected into the book really helped the material make sense in a fresh way. I truly feel that anyone who reads through this book will be better off for it. Good chance I’ll wind up calling this my favorite book of his.   The Rating: +2 cannarfs. (what’s a cannarf?)

Have any of you read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years? If so, what’s your cannarf rating?

Bonus Time…here’s an early draft of the cover art for the book when it was titled, Let Story Guide You, designed by Barak Hardley:

and here’s a potential cover that Barak Hardley designed for Million Miles that Don’s blog readers thought was a little too dark. (it references a passage in the book where Don talks about how people would mourn the loss of good stories, and not non-fiction, if a Book Mobile fell off a bridge.)