Jeff Strand's Blog, page 69

Welcome to Gleefully Macabre!

Welcome to my website! Whether you were brought here by interest in my work or a Google search gone terribly wrong, I encourage you to hang around and start clicking away!

The hardcover limited edition of Wolf Hunt 2 is now available for pre-order! Get it from Dark Regions Press or the paperback edition from Amazon. (Kindle edition coming December 16th.)

My new novel, Kumquat, is now available! Get the Kindle edition or the print edition from Amazon!

My new young adult comedy, I Have A Bad Feeling About This, is now available at the brick-and-mortar bookstore or online retailer of your choice! Being a young adult is not a requirement to read the book.

My second short story collection, Dead Clown Barbecue, is now available! Twenty-nine stories! 90,000 words of material! Get the Kindle edition for $3.99 or the paperback/deluxe hardcover editions from Dark Regions Press.

My novella Kutter is now available for your Kindle or Kindle app. Enjoy the delightful tale of a serial killer and his Boston terrier from Amazon.

(P.S.: People who leave reviews on Amazon deserve great big hugs!)

Friend me on Facebook ! Follow me on Twitter ! Like my Facebook Fan Page! Friend me on Goodreads!

Cat After Dark

One week later, my Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival recap is still a work-in-progress. It’ll be up later today. To tide you over, here’s an interview with me at Cat After Dark, plus reviews of both Wolf Hunt 2 and Facial. Is Wolf Hunt 2 an inferior sequel? Is Facial just flat-out lame? Find out here: http://catafterdark.wordpress.com/

BAD FEELING In Your Ears!

Have you longed to experience the wonder of I Have A Bad Feeling About This but thought, “I’ve read enough of Jeff Strand’s books! This time, I want somebody to read one to ME!”

Your wish has come true! It’s now available as an audiobook, wonderfully read by . There’s a short free sample on Audible. In fact, you can get the whole book for free if you sign up the 30-day free trial. Succumb to peer pressure! Doooooooooooo it.

(If you’re all about the physical media, the CD version of the audiobook will be available in December.)

Get it right here, kids! http://tinyurl.com/mo7y2s6

Just Because You CAN…

So I spent all day Sunday at the Florida Horror Film Festival (9:30 AM to just past 10:00 PM) and, except for a brief burger break, I saw everything that played. I wouldn’t go so far as to label myself a true American hero, but I won’t stop you from applying that label if you feel it’s merited. Excluding movies in which I am credited as an associate producer, movies where I know the people who made ‘em, and movies I’d already seen (like Mr. Dentonn, which is creeeeeepy), my favorite was Pernicious. 

A couple of the short films were very, very, very graphic. Just because you CAN project a particular moving image onto a large screen in front of a paying audience doesn’t mean you SHOULD. It’s true–there are a couple of things I’d never seen in an actual movie before. That doesn’t mean that nobody ever thought to capture these images. Probably lots of people have. They just decided AGAINST it.

FILMMAKER #1: Hey, should our movie include a shot of a woman peeing for real?

FILMMAKER #2: No.

But the festival was a lot of fun. I’m already looking forward to the next one, which is good, because I’ll be at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival this weekend!

Time Loop

Last week I wrote a blog entry about National Cat Day.

I wrote it on National Cat Day, October 29th. But I scheduled it to post on October 30th. The post was about how I missed National Day Cat…but also about how I didn’t really miss it, because I was writing the blog on the actual day, so I was writing about having missed something that I didn’t actually miss. It was this whole goofy “IS THIS BLOWING YOUR MIND???” kind of thing.

But I messed something up, and the blog didn’t post, nor was it saved. So now I’m writing a blog post about that blog post. However, though I’m writing this on October 30th, I’m scheduling it to post on November 3rd.  So when I said “last week” in the first sentence I actually meant “yesterday,” but to YOU it was last week.

IS THIS BLOWING YOUR MIND???

Florida Horror Film Festival

If Halloween just wasn’t enough to sate your appetite for spoooooooooky entertainment, then get thee to the Florida Horror Film Festival! There are two features on Saturday, November 1st, and then an entire day’s worth of short films on Sunday, November 2nd, including “Chomp.”

The fun starts at 7:45 PM on the 1st, and 9:00 AM on the 2nd. 4D Studios LLC. 2511 W. Swann Ave Suite 100. Tampa, Florida 33609. It’s only $5 on Saturday and $10 on Sunday. Click HERE for the official Facebook event page.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everybody! I hope that as you go on your trick-or-treating journey tonight, you visit several homes at the exact moment that the owners decide they’ve bought way too much candy this year, and they know they lack the self-control to have that much candy in the house, so they dump most of it in your bag just to get rid of it.

Candy Thoughts

Best Candy: Haribo Gummi Bears and Red Vines.

Best Candy Bar: Cadbury Fruit & Nut Bar and Twix.

Worst Candy: Whoppers. I assume that the strawberry milkshake ones are even worse but I’ve never tried them. Also Brachs Milk Chocolate Stars.

Best Candy That I Can’t Get Anymore: Sour Starburst and Chewy Tart-n-Tinys.

Candy That My Sister Told Incorrectly People I Only Said Was One Of My Favorites Because Nobody Else Liked It And That Way I Didn’t Have To Share: Raisinets.

Candies That I Only Like In Their Gourmet Forms: Gummi bears and jelly jeans. These are not inherently good. They’re only good if they’re Haribo or Jelly Bellies.

Beloved Candies From My Childhood That They Ruined: Tangy Taffy and Good n’ Fruity. Why did they need to add sprinkles to Tangy Taffy? And why did they have to turn Good n’ Fruity into jelly beans?

Candy That I Soooooooo Looked Forward To Because Of Its Ad Campaign But It Turned Out To Not Be All That Great: Bonkers.

Candy That I Used To Love, Haven’t Had In Decades, And Would Probably Be Underwhelmed By Today: Chuckles.

Candy That Was Part of a Christmas Collection That I Got Every Year And Never Liked: Butter Rum Life Savers. 

Candy That I Didn’t Like As A Kid But Like As An Adult: Almond Joy.

Candy That Somehow Continues To Exist Beyond All Common Decency: Chocolate covered pretzels.

Most Overrated Candy: M&Ms. They’re fine, but c’mon.

Candy That I No Longer Eat Because It Would Yank Out My Fillings: Bit-o-Honey.

Best Flavor Addition: Blue raspberry Sweet Tarts.

Candy Whose Eating Process Has Never Been Entirely Clear: Those wax soda bottles. Do you chew on them and spit out the wax? Do you bite off the tip and drink the liquid inside?

Favorite Piece of Candy Trivia: Three Musketeers bars used to actually come with three bars: strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate.

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Center of a Tootsie Pop? It depends on the length and intensity of the licks.

McRib

So I finally tried a McRib.

I’m no fast food snob. I was as giddy for the Doritos Locos taco as anybody, and I still enjoy them, even if we can all agree that they’re just a taco with cheese powder on the shell, not an actual Dorito. But I have limits. I’ve never tried a KFC Famous Bowl, or that sandwich that’s made out of two pieces of fried chicken with cheese between them. And I’d never tried a McRib.

With Chicken McNuggets (delicious Chicken McNuggets!) you can at least pretend that you’re eating choice cuts from a piece of chicken. You know perfectly well that you’re not, but if you dunk it in sauce and don’t inspect the inside after you bite into it, the possibility exists to sort of delude yourself.

The McRib doesn’t offer this possibility because, as you know, the meat is in the shape of bones! That was always the deal-breaker for me: that this rib sandwich had the meat in the shape of a rack of ribs that included the bones. We know we’re not eating an actual rack of ribs, but is it necessary to be that artificial?

But this week, I went into McDonald’s with the intention of getting a Jalapeno Double Burger. At the last second, I thought, “I’m gonna try a McRib! It’ll make a good Facebook post!” (This is why I make most of my life decisions.)

Here’s what I thought would happen: The McRib would be wonderful, and I’d write about the conflict of Shame vs. Deliciousness. “I tried to eat it ironically,” I’d write, “but I just couldn’t do it! #McRibYou’veCapturedMyHeart.” (Of course, I wouldn’t really put a hashtag in a Facebook post. This is purely hypothetical.)

Instead, I discovered that the legendary McDonald’s McRib sandwich is, in fact, quite gross. I’m not judging you if you fantasize about the McRib when it’s not available, but…seriously, it’s gross, right?

Readers, what do YOU think of the McRib?

Random Bits of News And Stuff

First of all, I will indeed be writing another young adult comedy novel. I THINK I will be able to blab about it next week. I don’t know that for sure, so don’t glare at me and give me a thumbs-down sign if by next week it’s still not quite official enough yet.  It won’t be out until 2016, so though I can’t stop you from clicking refresh-refresh-refresh-refresh-refresh in anticipation of the ordering link, there are better ways you could spend your time.

A couple of cool pieces of news about I Have A Bad Feeling About This. First, it’s been licensed by Scholastic for their Middle Grade Book Club. Yes, Scholastic! When I was a kid, the day the Scholastic catalogs arrived was a day of celebration, and I’m thrilled to be part of it, even if the idea of my work infiltrating the school system may be alarming to some, including me.

And it’s been nominated for the 2015 YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association–part of the American Library Association) Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list! Whoa!

“Gave Up The Ghost” has two upcoming film festival screenings: Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival (November 7-13) and the Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival (December 4-7). I’ll be attending both events.

This isn’t NEW news, but of course you can still pre-order the hardcover of Wolf Hunt 2, or the e-book of Facial, or regular order the Blu-Ray of Creepers.