53 Comments on “A Week of Silly Polls #4 & #5: Deadline Day!”

1. Re: Poll the First – Res ipsa loquitur.

2. Just take any old file and name it the file type you send to them. and then when they cannot open the file tell them you will try it again (giving you the time you need to finish writing it)

   Works in University sometimes for late papers :P

3. He’s currently watching Athena pound away at the keyboard, and repeatedly asking if she is done yet, because we all know she is really the one who has been doing the writing the last few years. Oh, and he’s eating crumpets. And drinking tea. Because that’s what taskmasters do, you see.

4. I was about to vote “Some other…” and try to write something silly enough, but eh, I’m just lazy. And if I am, so is everyone else.

5. I went with the “did you check your spam filter?” response, because it’s the one I actually get most often from authors. Sometimes, it’s even true. Pro tip, though: “FedEx must have lost it” only buys you about an hour, tops, for me to locate the tracking number and discover that you never sent it, so I suggest avoiding that one.

6. Extention question to poll #5:
   11. More than one of the above!!

7. The stars are right, R’lyeh has arisen and Great Cthulhu takes up his reign. No, seriously! It’s trending on Twitter!

8. In poll #4, I vote for the top four answers, all performed simultaneously.

9. He is in the basement, turbocharging the Clone-O-Matic(tm) to produce a dozen Scalzi clones before lunch. That way each can whip out two chapters by 4, and voila! A 24 chapter novel!

   What could possibly go wrong?

   (Besides the fact that he forgot to vacuum all of the pet hair out of the input hopper, I mean.)

10. All of the people who vote for something other than playing the ukelele are not writers.

11. I believe the correct answer to both is

    OH SHIT BEES

12. What, no photoshop option?

13. Generally speaking, almost any problem can be blamed on MS Word.

14. Try this one:

    John Scalzi is not your bitch.

    Hmmmm. No effect. It works when Gaiman says it. Is it the accent?

15. carmen webster buxton @ 13:
    Generally speaking, almost any problem can be blamed on MS Word.

    Better yet, blame it on MS Word’s DRM software that ate the manuscript. That way you also remind the editor that all DRM is TEH EVULZ!

16. Poll #1: Weird-ass Photoshoppery

    Poll #2: Neil Gaiman said: “John Scalzi is not your bitch!”

17. #3: You must not live in the South (US). Down here, taskmasters don’t “eat crumpets and drink tea”, they eat pork rinds and DRINK BEER! At least, that’s what my FIL (and husband) keeps telling me.

    :-)

18. One morning, when John Scalzi woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.

    This made it very difficult to type.

19. Chapter One I hadn’t really yet begun
    Chapter Two I better think this story through
    You said you’d fire me in the middle of Chapter Three
    But the cats were up to their old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six.

20. I’m with RJK: what, no more bees?

21. The answer to Poll 4 (What’s he doing RIGHT NOW?) is “all of the above, simultaneously”. He’s got mad multitasking skilz, but unfortunately only for non-work-related stuff…

22. Here’s your excuse John. Tell them disgruntled GRRM haters held you hostage in revenge for questioning their beliefs.

23. Pfft. The only time John Scalzi sees a deadline is in the rear-view mirror, and then only after feeling the soft bu-bump of the Mini’s tires crossing it on the way to a w00tstock engagement.

24. I say it’s the top *six* answers, all at once. And, Jennifer @17: Depends on the Southroner. Some do pork rinds and beer. Others do Coke and Krispy Kremes. Speaking of which, I better go fetch one before they’re gone…..

25. #4 Snorting Coke Zero
    #5 His Brain Pal is in the shop

26. Editorial excuse:

    “By the time you receive this email, my hostile takeover of the publishing company will be complete. Note that your position in the new regime may depend on your reply to this message.”

27. A thought: “Large talking badgers from another dimension appeared in his closet and begged him to save their world” sounds like a plot.

    Not a plot of “goes, saves”, but of “appear, beg, bargain, deal, case of Large badgers v. John Scalzi goes up to the Supreme Court”, of course.

    So my guess is that that fic has hijacked the plot 100 pages in, and that’s the answer to both #1 and #2.

28. Doesn’t the existence of the second poll all but prove that the fifth and sixth answers are both correct for the first poll?

29. I voted installing a catheter, although that one should have read “Catheterizing himself so he doesn’t have to leave his desk while mainlining caffeine and tequila” but that is just a minor quibble.

30. The house/cat/car excuse isn’t dire enough. It needs to be “The house is possessed by demons, the cat is on fire, and the car is pregnant, all at the same time.” Yeah. That’s the ticket.

31. just tell them you had to mow your lawn.

32. Re first poll: Drunk on cheap whisky, wine, and something “green”.

33. KWR @ 32: So he is defending us from the Kelvan Menace?

34. Apparently honeybadgers DO give a shit, but only about their own (non-Earth) home planet.

35. This is making the rounds among my friends today:

    AP: Northeast braces for temps near boiling point

    The extreme heat that’s been roasting the eastern U.S. is only expected to get worse, and residents are bracing themselves for temperatures near and above boiling point.

    Not an Onion article.

    I have a screencap for when they figure it out and pull it down.

36. First Poll answer: It’s got to have something to do with cats.

    Cheers & Happy Monkey,
    Ray

37. Poll #2: You’re working on a SUPER SEEKRIT project that you can’t tell them about. Because…if you did…well, then it wouldn’t be SUPER SEEKRIT then, would it?

38. Given what you’ve said over the years about the importance of organization, focus, persistence, and commitment for a successful writer, I suspect the answer REALLY is “Sitting here smugly.” Though “Catheterizing himself” does take the Gross Prize on many many levels… *shudder* In the end, I went with the ukelele because it could be either frantic procastination or gloating celebration of completion.

39. Vicki @35: Probably written by a Canadian, who thinks 100° is the boiling point of water, which of course it is… in Celsius. ;-)

40. Badgers. It’s always those fat, angry badgers.

41. He’s out taking cool pictures of the burning house. (Ooo, and there’ll be KITTEN pictures!) (The car barfing up pea soup, not so much…)

42. He is obviously fighting an invasion of Vampire Wombats, (sound effect: Duh duh duhh!) And we mean the evil intergalctic ones, not the wimpy sparkly hollywood ones.
    Fight them John, fight them all!
    I’ll be behind this rock cheering for you.

43. Badgers.

    They are organising. They have a space station. Space Station Badger:
    

44. Busy making polls. Can’t write. Double poll day.

45. formatting error: first list should have been choose as many as apply (“check boxes”), not pick exactly one (“radio buttons”)

46. Hopefully, John’s taking a minute out this weekend to call his Congresscritter Boehner, to tell him that he sees no reason the US should talk itself into a financial crisis, and to figure out some way to negotiate with the president. I mean, sheesh. I’ve got a paleoconservative rockhead for a representative, and I’m still able to get through and pester him, and I’m nobody. Come on, John, it’s 30 seconds. Do it in the bathroom or something.

47. “My house is on fire, my hair is on fire, and my houseboy has fleas.”

48. See, timing is everything; I chose the “sitting here smugly …” option, secure in the knowledge that a man who could learn an Elvis Costello song on his instrument of choice could not possibly have his attention compromised by something as mundane as a deadline.

49. Sitting here smugly because hell that’s what I would do. Badgers because Brian Jacques thought they were awesome and they were my choice to take over the world if they had opposable thumbs

50. Quantum poll inductive theory predicts for #4 that at the instant in question, you will have been relaxing a finger/toe/eyebrow/vocal cord, thus completing the very keystroke/mouse button/input event which (in your environment) caused ths article – in this case, a silly poll – to be posted to your ‘blog.
    I’m not sure if the world is ready for the answer to #5: Were it not for lbhe gvzryl vagreiragvba naq fhcreuhzna cvybgvat fxvyyf qhevat FGF-135’f svany ngzbfcurevp qrfprag, naq bhgyvavat gb gur uvturfg ryrpgrq yrnqre bs bhe angvba gur fgrcf ol juvpu vgf bireqhr rpbabzvp erpbirel pna or npuvrirq orsber PL2012 &uryyvc; well, a lot more than your MS would now be “late’.

51. Hi,
    My own 2 year old daughter suffers from the same addiction to wasabi peas.
    You are not alone in this.
    Be strong, Be healthy. Wear hello kitty all day (It works for her).

52. Isn’t the correct answer that John is still adjusting to his new bifocals and is having trouble reading.

53. Poll 1.) Praying for Future John Scalzi to arrive with manuscript.
    Poll 2.) Future John Scalzi is procrastinating.