Skol, Vikings

Congratulations to my Vikings, for making the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. Adrian Peterson, the greatest running back currently in the NFL, missed breaking the all time rushing record by 9 yards.

9 yards.

Still, he is only the 7th player ever to rush for over 2,000 yards, and he began the season only 8 months after a serious knee injury.

Now if only we could build a better team around him.

Abby Minard's Current Query

Before we get to Abby's letter, I just want to say I knew it. I knew there was something going on with the New Orleans Saints that was cheap and underhanded. They robbed my Vikings of our last best hope to win a Superbowl in the 2010 NFC Championship game (after the 2009 season). I could always tell something was rotten in Denmark, and now it's nice (actually - shitty) to know what was going on.

If you don't know what I'm on about, and you care, Google "Bounty Gate." It's gotten so bad, and that game in which the Vikings were robbed is such a perfect example of what was going on, that the NFL has cancelled a replay of that game that was supposed to occur this week.

I know, crying after the fact isn't well respected among sports fans. Sorry. End rant.

Now, do you guys know Abby Minard? Don't let my sports woes ramblings drive you away from meeting this awesome writer and blogger. She blogs at her self titled blog, which you can find, here.

Go follow her, you won't regret it. Back?

Here's her query:

Dear ______,

Holding her dying father in her arms is just the beginning for sixteen year old Nuala, a novice Ice Mage. Jarlath, a power hungry Earth Mage, murdered him. Worse, he has found a way to acquire the energy of all four Elements: Earth, Ice, Fire and Wind -- a feat that takes a terrible act of sacrifice and murder.

Nuala learns her mother’s suicide fifteen years ago enabled Jarlath’s rise in power. He now needs Nuala’s essence to complete what her mother did not finish. If he succeeds, it could mean the destruction of the delicate balance that holds the Elements and people of Tartha together. Nuala is given the only clue to defeating Jarlath, spoken by Mother Earth herself: “Not one with four, but four as one”.

The timid Ice Mage must now embark on a perilous journey in search of the key to solving the riddle while coming to terms with her father’s death and rumors of her mother’s betrayal. She meets three other Mages along the way who seem to be sent from the gods: an answer to her prayers. With every strike from Jarlath, the four Mages form an everlasting bond of friendship, taking them closer to the answer on how to defeat him. With that comes a choice: risk their Elements and possibly their lives to save Tartha, or save themselves and watch their world fall to the enemy.

ICESONG is a Young Adult Fantasy complete at 71,000 words and is available on your request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Abby Minard

That's it!

Please feel free to say something to console me about my poor Vikings, or to make fun of me for being such a baby, but definitely be sure to thank Abby for having the courage to share her query letter so that we all can learn together. Please remember to save your feedback for tomorrow, too.

Thanks!

Holiday Woes

I had a wonderful Christmas with my family, and there are many things I could tell you about, and celebrate, but instead I'm going to bitch about a couple things, because I can.

My Kindle died over the weekend. I've owned it for about 9 months. I'm really pissed. I'd grown quite attached to it, I must say, in those few short months.

I was in the middle of reading a really good book, too. Not one I can talk about, though. Thankfully I have the Kindle app on my iPad, so all was not lost, but reading on the iPad is a little bit like spraying lemon juice into your eyes, at least by comparison.

There is nothing quite as cool as e-ink. Except when that shit dies. I have no idea what went wrong with it. On Christmas Eve, it just froze. It would not respond to any buttons. I gave it a hard reset by holding the sleep slider button over to the right for over 20 seconds, and that rebooted the device, which then worked for about five minutes, and froze up again. I was able to reset it 3 or 4 times on Christmas Eve, but by the time we got home from Grandma's house, it was completely screwed. Now it will not respond to any buttons, and will only light up when connected to the charger, but will not be recognized by the PC, or complete charging (where the indicator turns from yellow to green). Amazon better have some kind of warranty in place, because I've had it for less than a year, and just got a second and third Kindle (different models) for my kids.

I'll be contacting them today.

The other thing I need to bitch about is the NFL. Well, mainly, Adrian Petersen. Every game I watched over the weekend sucked., but especially the Vikings. Not only did they win a pointless game, and therefore needlessly remove themselves from the running for the first draft pick, but they lost Adrian Petersen, possibly the best player in the sport, for this season, and most likely some of next season. It seems so utterly pointless.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have been playing. He's a competitor, and that's what they do, but for him to tear his ACL and MCL in such a needless game, and then for the Vikings to go on and somehow win that game ... it just puts a really crappy cap on a truly terrible season.

All right, that's it. I'm done complaining. I really did have a wonderful holiday, otherwise. How was your Christmas?