So while all you other blogs are getting Digged (or is the correct word Dugg?), Tweeted and Stumbld, I got Ponied! Take that, popular blogs! In your faces!

In other news…

Congratulations to Tracey OConnor whose I Hate My Messageboard was recently named one of the Top 10 Websites for Writers in 2009 by Writer’s Digest magazine. In her post yesterday, she was nice enough to thank me for designing her site, though I imagine they were honoring her more for her content than her site’s appearance. And while as a writer, I figured I would someday be in Writer’s Digest in some form or another, it seems only fitting (in the odd way that my professional life has unfolded) that my artwork would end up in the magazine first (as pictured in the screenshot of Tracey’s site). So, check out the magazine for some other cool sites mentioned in the article and check out I Hate My Messageboard for one of my personal Top 10 favorite sites.

Available Darkness

Sean Platt and I are still going strong on Available Darkness over at Collective Inkwell, even if reader response has been pretty quiet, save for our loyal handful of AD supporters.

Maybe we should market it as the best kept secret on the web.

If you are among the millions who haven’t been reading, and you happen to like suspenseful horror with mystery, vampires and some romantic and fantasy elements, then by all means, go check it out – and tell a few million friends, k?

Speaking of Sean…

He’s really all up in arms about this whole Kanye West thing. First he goes off on Kanye West at his  Writer Dad site, but then he also discusses Kanye’s lack of talent over at Collective Inkwell, where he compares a song done by both Kanye and The Fray and tells you which one is the worst thing ever. Can you guess which? He ALSO wrote about Kanye in a post for the kids. This might be the most inspirational thing Kanye’s ever done, if only for inspiring Sean to write three posts! Yeah, it’s a week after the fact but the dude has two kids, a wife and an annoying business partner, so he takes a bit of time to get to the really important things in life, like celebrity screw-ups.

That’s it for today. Come back tomorrow, when I will write about Thomas the Train and … poop. Yes, I will manage to connect the two. Aren’t you excited?

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It was one year ago that I met my writing and business partner, Writer Dad, Sean Platt.

The only reason we met is because he “stole” my domain name of Writer Dad. For those that haven’t already read this story, it was last summer when I found myself laid off from my job as a newspaper reporter. I was pretty much at my lowest point in life, as I’d just lost a job I loved – make that the only job I’ve ever had that I loved. I was looking for something new and decided to start a blog to keep my writing fresh and perhaps land a writing gig somewhere.

And I had the perfect name in mind, WriterDad.com.

The name was available, too. Which for those of you who have searched for domain names only to find all the best ones already taken, it’s a pretty big deal when such an awesome find is made.

The only problem was that was also in love with another domain which I opted to get instead. Almost immediately, I changed my mind and wanted to get WriterDad. However, when I went back to get it – it was gone!

Immediately, I typed in the url and saw that some joker named Sean Platt was now using the domain. And I wanted to hate him for “stealing” my name from me.

However, after reading his stuff, I was blown away. Here was a guy writing from the heart and writing some very powerful, thought provoking stuff.

On a whim, I decided to email him and tell him the story of the domain name story and ask him if he’d like to be interviewed for my new site, BloggerDad. I fully expected him to see my email as some sort of  “new guy” kissing up to a more established blogger hoping to share in the glory, which is not my style at all. However, you can never really be sure of somebody’s intentions on the Internet.

His response was nothing short of the nice guy who I’d gotten to know through his writing, with none of the ego or hubris that often comes with people who find quick success.

From there, we hit it off immediately. We’re a lot alike and have similar stories of growing up, though doing so on different coasts. And creatively, we gel perfectly. Our strengths and weaknesses compliment one another and we’ve found that working together on our various sites and our book, Available Darkness to be an amazing creative process.

But more than a creative partner, I’ve found a friend who is honest, hardworking and funny as hell. We talk nearly every day and though we’ve never met, Sean has become one of my closest friends. We are creating worlds together. And as an artist, that is the ultimate dream.

Today marks a slight shift in one of those worlds as we’ve given our first online home together, Collective Inkwell a bit of a makeover. If you haven’t already checked it out, I invite you to do so now. We’ve also rebooted our ghostwriting site, Ghostwriter Dad. If Collective Inkwell is our studio/coffee bar, where we talk about creativity, then Ghostwriter Dad is our office where we talk shop.

See you tomorrow with more Blogger Dad Looking Back stuff that I should’ve posted yesterday.

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Are you a writer?

Collective Inkwell will be kicking off its first contest later today (Wednesday), open to bloggers who like writing fiction. The grand prize will be all kinds of awesome for those wanting to take their blog to the next level.

The haircut story

I got a bad haircut today.

Not just a bad haircut, but maybe the WORST HAIRCUT EVER! The kind you’d see from a blind and mentally slow guy who got hold of the scissors when nobody was looking and decided to give himself a new style. Except, I paid for this one.

The back story: I told my wife that I needed to get a haircut today. My hair is getting long. And while it looks awesomely cool when its long, it looks horrible in that in-between short and long stage. And I just haven’t had the patience to grow it back out. While most guys have probably stopped reading by now, I’m sure the women know what I’m talking about.

My wife took issue with me wanting to get my hair cut.

“I haven’t had my hair done in months,” she said, “but you’ve had two haircuts.”

Reason – because we’ve been watching our money very carefully.

Of course MY haircuts are a whole lot cheaper than hers – though I wasn’t about to mention that! I might be dumb enough to post it on my blog, but not dumb enough to say it in person. Sorry, honey!

Fact is, she works hard while I am attempting to make a few different things come together, so she certainly deserves to get her hair done and feel all pretty and stuff. She is the best wife a guy could ask for and believe me, I feel horrible that our lifestyle has downgraded in the past year.

I told her to make an appointment and get her hair done. I hadn’t realized how long it had been.

A little while later, she told me to go ahead and get my hair cut. Our son’s second birthday is this weekend and we’re going to have people over and I ought not look like a Wolf Man.

Rather than go to my usual place, which is $14 plus tip, she asked me to go to That Place.

You know the place I’m talking about. THAT PLACE. The one with a GIANT $7 HAIRCUTS sign in the window. The place where the staff boasts hair styles you haven’t seen since the 80′s – Mall Hair.

Yeah, That Place.

I didn’t complain. It IS only hair after all, and what’s the worse they can do?

I arrived just as the small shop’s two proprietors finished slamming back bottles of Jack Daniels. Okay, maybe not. Maybe.

I asked if I could get a hair cut.

The older of the two woman (both in their 40′s)  looked at the clock – it was 10 minutes before they closed – and she asked the younger, “Can you cut his hair in three minutes?”

Oh God.

They battled over who would have to cut my hair, being so close to closing time and all, and the older woman was left holding the scissors. She asked what kind of cut I wanted.

Scared, I said, “just a trim.”

She proceeded to get a bowl from the counter, placed it around my head and snipped away.

Okay, not really, but if you saw my hair, you would totally think that.

Meanwhile, the younger and more overweight of the two, was complaining to us about how women are all “bitches” and they don’t know how to tip and how the shop would have to start charging “these bitches” more.

A delicate flower of femininity

“They F*#cked themselves,” the woman said as she doused herself in enough perfume to mask the scent of the most decayed of corpses. She then made plans to go next door and molest the guy who worked there. She dropped the F bomb a few more times, talking about bitchy women and complained about how cell phones were “F*#king things up for men because they can’t cheat any more because their bitches are always calling them and checking in on them.”

I guess this was putting a cramp in her dating life.

Did I mention that this was my first time getting my hair cut here?

Total haircut time: 8 minutes.

A good scissor cut should not take eight minutes!

I’ve been to enough real salons (the kind which charge you enough to wonder if the price included an erotic massage) to know that a decent haircut takes time to do right. I’ve had stylists take 40 minutes plus to do my hair. And I always tip them well for their time.

As the woman finished my haircut, she said, “you look great” over and over as if repeating it would make it true, or at least make me believe it.

I was friendly, paid my bill, tipped her and left.

I got home and…

my wife laughed.

And laughed.

“That looks…,” she struggled to find the right words. There were no words to describe THIS.

She suggested going back and having them fix it tomorrow. I told her that I wouldn’t go back there again unless asked by law enforcement deputies to point out the suspects.

“Well, go to your place,” she said, “just get it fixed.”

No, that would defeat the purpose of saving money. I’m not going there.

“You can’t look like that for the party,” she said.

Wanna bet?

“I got this haircut and I’m gonna keep it, no matter how bad it looks. And I’m gonna let everyone know you sent me to That Place.”

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