Today I’m beginning a new weekly feature on the blog: What’s For Lunch? Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, I and my coworkers will go to lunch, and then I’ll tell you about it. Sounds absolutely FASCINATING, right? (The intent is that we’ll go to interesting places, and make profound and witty observations. The other intent is to give me something to blog about.)

My partner in this is Joel Hiller, who is also a fiction writer (and is the marketing writer in my department). I thought Joel would be a great addition partly because of his writing background, but mostly because Joel is an extremely picky eater who hates everything. (He also has a blog, which you can read here.)  (Below, Joel is posting in the italicized blue.)

So, without further ado, I give you the first edition of What’s For Lunch? Wednesdays, featuring Chinatown Wok!

More like “Wok this way,” amirite?

As far as me being a picky eater, it’s all a matter of perspective. If you like to fish half-eaten hot dogs out of the dumpster at the ball park, more power to you. (I’m not saying Rob does this, but I can’t conclusively say that he doesn’t).

So, my first impression of the place was that it was clean, and by “clean” I mean, “devoid of people.”

I should probably point out that we work in West Valley City, which is a cultural wasteland. This is the city where I had to purchase a book at a Sears because there were no other bookstore options. Consequently, our dining options are somewhat limited. We’re going to avoid chains—our intent is to always go somewhere we’ve never been before—but it’s not like we’re strolling Barcelona’s tapas bars here.

As far as the lack of culture, I must refer you to the question of whether zero is a number.

Once we had entered the restaurant and established that they were in fact open for business, it was time to check out the menu, which for some reason was split between the sign overhead and the small papers taped to the front of the counter.

I ordered the lunch combo. To set the scene: imagine you’re ordering a lunch combo at a Chinese take-out place. It was like that.

My two entrée choices were Moo Goo Gai Pan (because I’ve always heard the name but never ordered it before) and the NYC-Style Teriyaki Chicken, because I was very curious to see what made it NYC-Style. I mean, I’ve eaten a lot of teriyaki chicken in my day, but never the way big-city folk do.

In a fit of creativity, I too selected the combo. But I decided to be daring (here defined as “eating familiar items”) and go with the General Tso’s chicken and sesame chicken. I always eat General Tso’s when given the chance, because I figure it will make me a wise military leader. And I eat the sesame chicken because I assume it is made from Big Bird.

Rob's Food

I also ordered some potstickers and a bowl of Hot and Sour Soup.

The potstickers turned out to be the best part of my meal. The Moo Goo Gai Pan was the worst. It was essentially chicken and vegetables covered with sauce, but in this case the sauce looked like some kind of clear gravy. Maybe this is extremely typical of moo goo gai pan—maybe this is the best plate of moo goo gai pan to ever grace a Styrofoam lunch tray—but I didn’t care for it at all.

As for the teriyaki chicken: it turns out that people in New York eat it much the way the rest of the country does.

Never eat something called “goo” that is transparent. Or anything called “goo,” for that matter. I’m just saying, I’ve wiped enough kids’ noses to know better.

The staff made the food fresh for us, which was a big bonus of the place being empty. So we got our meals and decided to sit at an awesome high table. Because why not take advantage of every chance to look down on someone? The pleasure is only slightly diminished by the absence of other patrons, and the fact that Rob refused to sit at one of the lower tables.

On this table was a TV remote control, and it was mummified in SaranWrap. Apparently not all diners are as tidy as we are.

Only one other woman came in while we ate. This was during the noon-hour, too, so you’d expect more patrons. Maybe everyone had the moo goo gai pan the first time and decided not to return. Or maybe they had the General Tso’s chicken, as Joel did, and died of radiation poisoning.

Joel's Food

Bah. It’s just a healthy orange glow.

Behold, my glorious meal in all its splendor (diminished somewhat by the crappy camera on my phone):

So, what did we learn today?

• I learned that we need to find more interesting places to eat, especially for the inaugural edition of a restaurant-oriented blog feature.
• I learned that the reason it’s called General Tso’s chicken is because it’s somehow infused with his blood. I still prefer it to Rob’s mucus platter.
• I learned that when you don’t get a free fortune cookie, you get to make up your own fortune. (Mine: “Joel will do all your work so you can take the afternoon off.”)
• I learned that when eating with Rob, it’s best to wear a poncho. He’s not a messy eater or anything; it’s just fun.

So, in conclusion, I’m going to rate all of these restaurants in relation to Applebee’s. I hereby declare Chinatown Wok to be two and a half times as good as Applebee’s, or 2.5ApB, as the physicists say.

And now for my rating. On a scale of 1 to 100, Chinatown Wok gets 60 belt notches. I will continue my search for the eating establishment that can provide a perfect 100-notch rating, where my stomach will explode from awesome food goodness, and I will die happy. And somehow I doubt that obituary will say I died in West Valley City.

I find Fall TV to be an interesting phenomenon. We go into it expecting most of it to be terrible, and that most of the new shows will be canceled within a few months. Entertainment magazines and bloggers make predictions about what will be first on the chopping block. I understand all about Sturgeon’s Law (that 90% of everything is crud), but I still have to wonder why TV networks can get things so wrong so regularly. Is the answer just that making TV shows is really hard? Or is it that TV studios are really stupid?

Anyway, I’ve been watching more TV than I would like lately. Which is not to say that I don’t like watching TV, but that I haven’t been sleeping much this last week (due to a cold that didn’t let me breathe when I laid down, and also due to a baby who is currently for sale.) (Cheap!)

A few thoughts on the new season. I’ll quite likely spoil things without warning (or regret).

The Event

The premise of this show is surprisingly simple for being a big conspiracy show. There are two main plots: one has a twenty-something guy who’s trying to find his kidnapped girlfriend (whilst being framed for a murder), and the other has the President of the United States dealing with some aliens in an Alaskan prison. The aliens have powers, they look like humans, they’ve infiltrated society. And so on.

So, it’s going to be more long-form mystery/conspiracy stuff. The question is: will it be good, like the first season of Heroes, or will it suck, like all the other seasons of Heroes? Will it be layered and complex, like Lost, or will it be a cheap mystery/conspiracy knock-off, like FlashForward? My answer: almost certainly the latter.

Here’s the biggest problem with The Event: they don’t have enough ideas. The structure is great and fun, how they bounce around through the time line to see different things from different angles. But here’s the problem with that: the different viewpoints don’t reveal anything significantly different.

For example: we knew that Leila (the aforementioned girlfriend) was kidnapped from her room on the cruise ship. The show had explained that, it had inferred that, and then we saw her with the kidnappers. But then we have a flashback where we get to watch it happen–for no reason whatsoever. Both of the episodes so far have been full of this kind of thing: flashbacks that reveal nothing, give no clues, no additional insights. It’s like they have 20 minutes of good material (well, “good” material) and then they have pad the rest of the hour with repeated, obvious fluff.

All of that said, I don’t hate the show and I’ll probably give it a few more weeks to find its feet before I give up. I don’t know why. I think it’s because the actors are likable. There’s nothing about the show that’s really making me mad–just making me sad. You’ve disappointed me, The Event. I expected more from you. I want you to think about what you’ve done. (Or not done.)

Survey says: I’ll give it another few episodes.

Hawaii Five-O

As the well-known theme music came on, my baby said “Gramma”. The point of this story is to show you how adorably cute my little baby is, and how obsessed my mother is–my parents’ NetFlix queue is an endless string of Hawaii Five-0 discs.

Despite that, I am not too familiar with the old show. I watched a few episodes, but not enough that I really knew all the characters. Which, it turns out, is just fine because the new show doesn’t have much to do with the old one.

One of my biggest pet peeves with cop shows is the complete disregard for reality. I’m not talking about nitpicky stuff about the details of police procedure–I’m talking about the big stuff that gets cases thrown out of court: illegal searches, beating up suspects for information, shooting indiscriminately. We, the viewing public, are not idiots–we know these basics of the law–and yet most cop shows (NCIS, Criminal Minds, Bones, Law and Order: SVU, CSI, etc) all ignore these things completely. And–SPOILERS!!!–so does Hawaii Five-0.

Here’s the really weird thing about the show: the characters are all bland stereotypes, especially the main character, Steve McGarrett. But Danno is really interesting. It amazes me that the same writers who created everything else also created him. (My guess: it has more to do with the actor than the writers.) (Neat trivia: the actor is James Caan’s son!)

Survey says: no thanks.

Chase

This is a show about US Marshals who are tracking down bad guys. The end. That’s all you need to know.

And actually, that’s just fine, because every time that they take a break from the plot to focus on the characters–such as the interaction between the marshals when they’re eating breakfast–makes me want the bad guys to shoot them all.

I missed the first episode, but the only redeeming quality to the second episode was the bad guy, played awesomely by Robert LaSardo. Alas, the bad guy was captured and won’t be in other episodes.

Survey says: Meh. I’ll probably treat this show like I treat Bones: if it’s on, and it’s late at night, and the remote is too far from my hand, I’ll watch it.

I think that’s all the new fall shows that I’ve watched so far. I’ll try to catch up on some of the others and blog again if any of them are any good. (Unlikely.)

What have you guys been watching?

I got to see my cover last week. It’s not the final version–it’s a preliminary comp, which means that the layout and images are really close to what it will eventually look like, but not finalized. Consequently, I’m not allowed to spread it around or display it online; I only have a hard copy, and I have to mail it back to Harper on Thursday.

But, let me just say: Holy Awesome.  This is a fantastic cover. I knew that Harper has good designers, but I was really blown away by this.  Sure, maybe some of that can be chalked up to the excitement of seeing my first big national book cover, but I think more of it has to do with the fact that the cover is RAD.

By coincidence, a podcast that I adore (and all aspiring writers ought to listen to), Litopia, addressed the topic of covers last week. One of the guests complained about how covers (genre covers in particular) are becoming too cliche; another complained about covers that don’t represent the content of the book–that they mislead you into buying the books.  Examples were given and debate was had, and no one really came to any conclusion about anything.  But it got me thinking.

I’m not a graphic designer, but I am a marketer, and the cover is, above all else, a marketing tool. It’s designed with the sole purpose of getting you to pick the book up. From this marketing standpoint, I can see a little of both sides of the argument. Misleading covers are used because they get your attention–”Hey! A book about airships!”–and then maybe you’ll read the backcover to find out what the book is actually about, and maybe you’ll buy it. Cliches are used in book covers because it snugly shoehorns a book into a certain genre.  (And, despite what everyone claims, we’re all swayed and affected by covers. We like things to be categorized for us, because it’s easier for us to make value judgments. We all judge books by their covers all the time, even though we pretend not to. We may very well do it subconciously, but we still do it.)

I’m not defending the use of cliches and misleading covers, merely explaining them. (But in some ways I’m defending them, too. When Brandon Sanderson received the deal of the century–getting to finish the Wheel of Time series–I ribbed him a bit about getting famous Wheel of Time cover art. The art, seen here, is by a guy called Darrell Sweet, and he’s done all of the covers since the beginning, and I think they’re horrid. Brandon, however, was much more circumspect. He said that Darrell Sweet’s art means something to readers. I–not a Wheel of Time fan–might find the art ugly/cliche/whatever, but to WoT fans, Sweet’s art is a stamp of authenticity. Brandon explained to me that many fantasy writers would love to get Sweet’s artwork on their cover, because it connects with a certain demographic of readers.)

But enough of that. I want to talk a little about the covers of my previous books.

Here’s my first book, On Second Thought. Despite the fact that the image is taken directly, with no modifications, from GettyImages, the cover is pretty good. It accurately shows elements from the story (the businessman in the desert) and also elements of the theme (the lack of direction and the impending need for decisions to be made).  While the cover doesn’t scream “comedy!” (and definitely doesn’t scream “rom-com”), it certainly has a bit of whimsy to it.

Here’s my second book. *Shudder*

I don’t think that there is much happening in favor of this cover. First, the image has nothing to do with the story. There is no character in the book who is ever dressed in a suit (the main character is a slacker college student), and there is no reason for anyone to have his head in the sand. And, if you’re thinking this must be a metaphor–as evidenced by the title–then you’re wrong there, too. The title has nothing to do with the story or the theme.

Also, this cover is really, atrociously ugly. Would it surprise you to learn that this book has the highest GoodReads ratings of all my books, yet sold the worst (by far)?

My third book has a great cover, in my opinion. It conveys both the tone of the book as well as the showing a vital set piece (the Arch de Triumph). And, if my second book sold the worst, how do you think this one sold? Close to three times as well. Yes, Virginia, people really do judge books by their covers.

All of that said, I’m happy to announce that my upcoming cover is fantastic: neither cliche nor misleading, but still managing to be both artistically beautiful and a humdinger of a marketing piece.  Hopefully I can show you the finalized version soon.

So, what are your thoughts about covers? Do they influence your reading/buying decisions? (Also: let me know what covers you love!)

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t terrible, I just wasn’t great. I took some medicine, took it easy, and went to bed.

But today–oh my, today.

I’m mentioned before, here and elsewhere, that I get migraines. I’ve had them for about twelve or thirteen years, and I’ve tried about every kind of medicine known to man: I’ve been to neurologists who did tests and I’ve been to chiropractors who did adjustments and I’ve been to alternative medicine therapists who did magic. It was all fairly worthless until about 2007 when a doctor gave me a new medicine, Maxalt, that was the wonder drug. It killed the migraines with no side effects. Alas, it wasn’t covered by my insurance at the time, and without insurance it cost $26 per pill. Fortunately, my new insurance, which I’ve had since January, covers it and I’m a new man. At the sign of a migraine I take a pill, and it’s gone within the hour.

Unless. The problem is that I have to take the pill within the first 30 minutes or so of getting the migraine. If I’m too slow, then no amount of Maxalt will do anything. And this morning, I woke up with a migraine. I quickly took a pill, but the migraine had apparently been festering for quite some time, and the Maxalt did nothing. And, while some migraines are bad, a few times a year I’ll get a murderous, hateful migraine. This was one of those.

While I was lying face down on the bathroom floor, kind of rocking back and forth, my wife called one of my coworkers and told him I wasn’t going to be in. She then called a couple of elders from my church, who came over and gave me a blessing. I threw up, took a Lortab, and went to bed.

When I woke up, about noon, my palm had red welts from where my clenched fingers pressed into it while I slept. That’s happened once before, and wasn’t too shocking, but I was surprised to see my forehead was bruised along a crease above my right eye–apparently my brow was so tightly furled that it bruised. Yes, I also think that this is crazy and there must be some other explanation, but I can’t think of one.

I went to work, because I had an important meeting with the CEO. I couldn’t even function in my office–I just laid my head on my desk, shaky and pained, until my boss (the VP) decided to postpone the big meeting. So, I went to the bathroom and threw up again, and then went home. I took another Lortab and went back to bed.

Here’s the surprising thing about today. Despite the pain and the drugs and the tense sleep, tonight my mind seems really clear. I’ve had a lot of interesting epiphanies–about my writing, about my job, about my life. I feel peaceful and almost like I’m seeing things from a new perspective.

I’m not saying that my life flashed before my eyes or anything, but I really do think that being in so much pain–and feeling so helpless and fragile–gave me some insights into things I didn’t really understand before. Despite the fact that I’m now behind schedule and going to be playing catch up at work, I’m kinda looking forward to tomorrow.