Earlier tonight, Craig, Ed, Karen and David did a foin, foin job as guests on Yellowstone Public Radio, talking to host Ken Siebert and listeners everywhere about blogging.

I thought the panel provided a nice cross-range; David Crisp, as he himself admitted, is fascinated by the documentation, history and evolution of blogging. Karen does it purely for the joy of communicating with other people and sharing her hobbies/interests. Ed provides an interesting perspective from the corporate side, since his blog is sanctioned by the Gazette. And Craig's probably the most established blogger Montana has to offer.

It was somewhat surreal to hear the voices of the four panelists (I've never met any of them in person before), as well as callers such as Randy and Jim.

All in all, a fun listen, and I liked Ken Siebert's suggestion to do it again in a few months.

The Billings Gazette tells us work on Tiara, a planned entertainment/restaurant/retail complex in front of Rimrock Mall, is back on track after numerous delays. "While all this [referring to the delays] was going on, instead of pouting, we redesigned it," says the project's developer.

And what, pray tell, have they designed? A restaurant/lounge/theater to be called the 12th Planet Entertainment Complex, using a design scheme the developer calls "Stargate" meets "Aliens." Because, you know, nothing connotes fine dining ambience quite like the lair of lock-jawed monsters dripping acidic spoor. The developer even provided a concept illustration of the space, which looks to me like the wet dream of 15-year-old boy who worships Satan and Ozzy with equal fervor.

But wait folks. That's not all you'll get at Tiara and/or the 12th Planet Entertainment Complex:

On the ground floor, there would be a casino with 20 gaming machines, with a spaceship-looking contraption hanging from the ceiling and holding plasma TVs that people could watch while gambling.

This is important because, as we all know, those folks who play keno and video poker are huge--huge--Sci Fi fans. I can't tell you how many times I've walked through Montana casinos and been greeted with the Vulcan hand signal by avid keno enthusiasts.

The main attraction would be the restaurant-lounge, where as many as 1,000 people could be seated on three tiers for meals or to watch entertainment on a 30-by-20-foot stage, with 15-foot wings on either side and a 28-by-14-foot LED screen behind the stage. The screen could be used for showing videos or for projecting live footage of whatever offering is on stage.

[The developer] said the main stage and two smaller stages on the upper levels could host a wide variety of entertainment, from pop concerts to jazz groups, comedy nights to car shows. He said he plans to hire and train eight "Tiara girls" who would provide professional choreography as a backup to the stage shows.

Hey, why not? If the guy can design and develop entertainment complexes, he can certainly train lap dancers--er, I mean "professionally choreographed performers."

"I've been to a lot of clubs in my life, but I've never seen anything like this anywhere," [the developer] said. "I hate to say it's just like Vegas because it's even different from that. It's like Disney."

Disney. Yeah, it's just like that.

Like just about anyone human, I'll admit I form opinions about people long before I meet them--based purely on secondhand information. And, like just about anyone human, I'll admit those opinions are often wrong.

Case in point #1: Back in the 80s, when a relatively unkown man entered Montana politics and eventually declared his candidacy for governor, I thought he didn't stand a chance. He had a french name you couldn't even pronounce, for cripe's sake: Marc Racicot. Well, as most people know, Racicot became one of Montana's most-beloved governors, prompting one political wag to observe he could appoint himself king if he so desired.

Case in point #2: Brian Schweitzer, our current governor. I've always felt he's been equal parts P.T. Barnum and Harry Houdini: a great showman, but perhaps a bit of an escape artist who likes to talk himself into--and then out of--confining situations. Of course, I formed this opinion without ever having worked with the man.

Last week, I had an opportunity to spend an afternoon directing and working with Governor Schweitzer for a television commercial. And I have to say, he was good-natured, easy to work with, and gracious. One scene we shot about six times, with us offering tweaks and modifications between each. I assured the Governor we had usable stuff; but it's always best to shoot multiple takes to cover your bases. He replied, "I'll nail this next one," and well, he did. I was impressed with that; all of us--including the Governor--knew we had scenes that could work, but he was committed to continuing until we had a take we all loved.

Also, this spot required the Governor to work with kids on camera. He was at ease with the kids, talking to them between takes to make them more comfortable. God bless him for that alone.

How about this? When Governor Schweitzer arrived, he was accompanied by a couple of staff mambers and Jag, his border collie. Jag was exceptionally well-trained and behaved during the shoot, even though we had cameras, lights and people surrounding him. Someone asked the Governor at one point if his dog went everywhere with him. "Yes," he replied without hesitating. Hey, how can you not like a guy whose constant companion is his dog?

Bottom line: Governor Schweitzer impressed me. And, being a wee bit of a cynic, I'm not the easiest guy to impress. (On a side note, the commercial we shot was for Montana's "Invite a Friend" program, which encourages Montanans to send the names of out-of-state friends to the Governor's office; in turn, the Governor sends them a letter of invitation and a vacation planning kit. I'm editing this spot today, and I'll try to post a preview of the spot here when it's approved.)

Seems an impossible task to pick such a creature, but the folks at storySouth are up to it with their Million Writers Award for Fiction. They've narrowed the list to ten finalists, with links to their accompanying stories. If you enjoy reading fiction, this is a good place to spend your next few hours. I'm a big fan of spec fiction, so I'm happy to see Terry Bisson's "Super 8" among the final ten. I'm just as happy to note three of the finalists are regulars at Zoetrope: Alicia Gifford, Jai Clare and Xujun Eberlein.

Yes, there's a connection between the two--at least according to the entertaining treatise called On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile, authored by the Grumpy Old Bookman.

His theory, in a nutshell: publication (and subsequent success) of fiction is random and arbitrary. The business of publishing, in GOB's mind, is bass ackwards, from the slush pile readers at literary agencies to the advances paid at publishing houses. And all in all, it's hard to argue with his logic. If you have any interest whatsoever in the world of books and publishing, this is a must-read you'll find oddly exhilarating and depressing at the same time (make sure you download the whole pdf file).

Favorite excerpt:

Does rejection make you more determined to succeed? Possibly. But it may also cause a writer to decide (probably quite correctly) that this writing business is a fool’s game. A writer who produces a professional piece of work, and is yet unable to persuade an agent to take him on, or a publisher to invest in his book, may well conclude that the slush-pile procedure is impossibly flawed and that sensible people would not continue to waste postage on it. I happen to believe (without empirical evidence to support my view) that the writers who come to this conclusion are probably the ones who would do best in publishing if they actually persevered; because they, at least, have proved capable of rational thought. By contrast, it is the all-time, never-going-to-be-publishable losers who will see rejection as a reason to redouble their efforts.

I suppose this would be a bad time to talk about redoubling efforts to get my latest novel published. Oh, and another favorite snippet, this a bit of advice to would-be novelists:

It is unlikely, on the whole, even with Madame Randomness on your side, that you are going to be able to achieve fame, literary reputation, and lots of money, all at the same time. There are exceptions, of course (e.g. Hemingway), and one of the most frequent errors on the part of writers is to assume that they themselves will be one of those rare exceptions. (If you want to know why this is an error, consider this: when we get into a car to go to the supermarket, we do not, generally speaking, assume that we are going to be one of those rare people who get killed in an accident.)

I suppose this would be a bad time to talk about going to the supermarket.