Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

Yes, the Stanley Cup visited the Michigan Capitol Building last week and thankfully I was able to get a picture of us together--without me having to wait hours in line. I first saw the cup during a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame many years ago and then once again during the Stanley Cup parade in 2002.


Stanley's Wrangler--sadly it wasn't the dude you see in all the commercials and such.


Stanley on camera in the secret video room (aka "The Bat Cave") where I work.


Stanley on another monitor. You can really see how bent up the top part of the Cup is--it just doesn't look right.


Stanley on public display in the rotunda of the Capitol.


The end of the line to see The Cup. It snaked around a bunch of times inside too (which made getting around for my daily duties interesting), it was very lengthy--which made me happy. I didn't really expect too many people. Sadly, not everyone got to get their picture taken with it. Stanley is on a tight schedule and they packed him up promptly when the time came. I had a friend in line who was only about ten people away from seeing it and spent easily over an hour in line and didn't get a picture taken with the Cup--but I did hear that they lined everyone up on either side of the hallway and slowly walked the Cup down so everyone could at least see it.

In other news, I went to Wizard World over the weekend in Chicago--and well it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Catching a cold on Day One of a five day trip ain't fun. Details later.

I visited the Delta Township District Library for the third time this week yesterday. Just can't get enough of that place. Well, my second visit was just to pick up the CDs for the box set I got on Monday--they weren't in cases when I checked it out. Simple mistake. The librarians appreciated me not freaking out about it and their repeated apologies made me wonder what sort of tongue lashings they've received in the past. Having spent four years working at a video store, I could relate and I told them so. We shared a "I hear ya bro" moment.

I know I was subjected to obnoxious ranting and raving from unruly costumers during my tour of duty at the video store, I can only image what librarians have to go through. I see it as, I had no reason to get upset about it because I was getting the CD set (a $60+ value) for FREE. But I know there are some people out there who don't see things that way and love any reason to pick a fight with someone. I certainly encountered those at the video store. My favorite was when people accused us of purposely checking movies in a few minutes late so they'd have to pay a fee. Yeah. Because we have nothing better to do than to single out your copy of Corky Romano out of a few dozen others and hang on to it until  two minutes after noon and THEN check it in.

Here's a bit of an inside secret--the computers in the store where I worked didn't start recording things late until after 1PM, even though the listed due back time was noon. So there. This was at a Blockbuster if you care, but don't rely on this information because they could have changed it by now.

Yesterday I returned to the library to drop off my book on CD copy of Old Man and the Sea--loved it. I picked out Lewis Black's book Nothing's Sacred AND it is read by the man himself. It is all kinds of hilarious. And the best part was, I used the library's new Express Checkout (or whatever it is called). Very neat--it is a self-check out system. You scan your card and then what you're taking out. Easy.

I visited the brand new Delta Township District Library the other day, and boy is it nice. It is a brand new building with lots of space and it just looks great. It has way more space than the previous library, so most of the shelves are (amusingly) almost empty. But I'm sure those will fill up quick now that they have the room to get more books (SHAMELESS PLUG: I'll be a guest there on August 12th for a panel discussion on self-publishing--I'll have books for sale too).

As a guilty pleasure I went looking for a copy of The Magic of Eyri, I always get giddy when I see my book on a library or store shelf. According to their database, they do have a copy ( I was emailed by a library rep recently letting me know they had one), but I didn't see it anywhere on the shelves. But, it just opened so I think they may still be organizing stuff.

I checked out some fun stuff: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, which I have very much looking forward to reading. I haven't been this excited to check out a book in a long time. So far I love it, I highly recommend it. I'm a fan of hard boiled/pulp fiction detective stories, so this was right up my alley--and it is an alternative history story to boot.

In an effort to shake up my daily routine, I also picked up The Old Man and the Sea on CD to listen to while driving to and from work. I usually just listen to NPR (or the occasional Mojo NIxon album) but I wanted to try something different. It is a nice change of pace, and I'm loving the story.

Finally I got this neato CD compilation set called Left of the Dial, a bunch of indie/underground/punk songs from the 1980s. One problem though: I went to go listen to it yesterday and I come to find out all of the cases are empty. They forgot to put the discs in the cases when I checked out the set. Drat. And I really wanted to listen to Bela Lugosi's Dead.

During my lunch break today, I walked through downtown Lansing's popular Washington Square block to a bookstore. I was considering buying Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union because I finished Night of the Avenging Blowfish and Sin City: Hell and Back, so I needed something new to read. And I loved Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, so I am very much looking forward to reading this one.

Sadly, as I finally reached the bookstore I spotted a giant For Lease sign in the window. "Oh no!" I yelled as I ran up to the window and peered inside. Sure enough, it was empty, save for the book racks and cases. I twist of it is that I had been in there barely a month ago and bought the Illustrated Classics edition of Wind in the Willows (which I HIGHLY recommend, the art is amazing).

And on a more personal note, they use to carry copies of The Magic of Eyri. They had at least one I spotted while in there some time ago--which I quickly offered to sign and better still, it was sold.

That's the second bookstore in downtown Lansing to close in the past year. The first was the Waystation, which was a favorite haunt of mine. It was mainly a used bookstore and I found many gems there (including a few Pratchett and Moorcock books).

It bums me out when independent bookstores close. I had asked them during my last visit how business was and they said it had been picking up since the weather got nicer. I guess it just hadn't picked up enough. Sigh. Times are tough in Michigan, and here is yet another causality.

I had the pleasure of talking to students at Haslett Middle School today about being a writer (and self-publishing, etc). It was fun, the kids (ages 11-12ish) were very polite and many had a lot of questions for me.  I gave each of them a promo card and those who answered certain questions got a free mini-pin.

They started paying more attention to my questions after I started handing pins out.  I think I did a pretty good job talking about writing, self-publishing and self-promotion. I donated a copy of The Magic of Eyri to their library, which they were happy to take. I grumbled a bit at first about having to be all the way in Haslett at 8 in the morning, but it was worth it.

I asked some fun questions to keep them involved, like if I pay $16 a copy to have a book printed and sell them for $20 at a con, how much money do I actually make? And what is that amount of money called? They all knew the answers, which was good. I had fun explaining what a satire/parody was too.

Hopefully some of the kids visit my sites and check out my book from their library, some seemed excited when I told them I was donating a copy. I also gave a copy to a lucky kid after drawing a name from a hat. Thankfully, there were four different groups so by the time I got to the last one I had my routine down pretty smoothly.  I also mentioned National Novel Writing Month and having to write 50,000 words in less than 30 days. I asked the kids to shout out the longest thing any of them of written, I think the longest was 35 pages.

All in all, it was a great time and I hope I got some kids interested in my book.

I came to the rescue this afternoon at my local comic book shop. I was scanning the racks for the latest issue of B.P.R.D.: 1946 when I overheard a pair of young teens asking one of the employees about the value of their Magic: The Gathering cards. One claimed that he had been told a few of his cards were worth in excess of $50, perhaps even way more.

The problem was that neither of the kids nor the employee could tell which set/edition the cards were from, which affects the value of the card. For those who don't know, some Magic cards are reprinted in different sets with the original sets being the most valuable. The early sets didn't have much in the way of identification, but Wizards of the Coast quickly figured out a system--hence expansion sets and reprint sets having little icons.

Anyway, back to the story. I walked over to the counter and offered my two cents worth. I looked at the card and quickly recognized it as a Revised Edition, Force of Nature, which much to the kids' disappointment was only worth about $1.75. Discouraged, the kids left the store and the employee thanked me for me help.

I use to play Magic a lot about ten years ago, but I probably haven't touched a deck in the past five years (give or take). Once I got to college I stopped playing as much, aside from a game here or there with friends for sheer nostalgic value. I just couldn't keep up with all the sets and all the wacky rule changes. I'm sure all of my painstakingly fine tuned decks are verboten in tournament play now. I used to play in tournaments back in the day, and I even won a couple (or placed pretty high). There was a Media Play store about 20 minutes from home that had weekly (or bi-weekly, can't remember) Magic nights on Fridays.

Yeah, so my Friday nights in middle-school/high school were spent playing Magic, watching X-Files or playing Mario Kart 64 or Golden Eye at a friend's house. I was (was?) such a geek.

The other issue I had with Magic as I got older was that I didn't like having to dump a bunch of money into it all the time--and there was the ever present complaint of having to play against people who would just buy the super-rare cards worth hundreds of dollars so they could easily win. I hated that. I really liked playing sealed deck/draft tournaments--you were given a brand new starter deck and a couple of boaster packs and had to make a working deck out of it. Those were a lot of fun, because some of the people I played against who'd just buy the super rare/game breaker cards didn't know much about strategy or how to work with less.

I still enjoy the game and think it is fun, even though I haven't played it in a long time. Where's my Red/Green Erhnam Djinn deck?