A small sample of what I've been working on. Hope you enjoy!

Francis pulled out a small silver cross out of his coat pocket and held it in front of him. “Lilian Camden, you're under arrest. Turn around right now!”

Camden turned around and flashed a wicked grin. Two fangs extended about a quarter of an inch below the rest of her teeth. “Okay, officers, I've turned around. Now what do you want me to do?”

Before any of them could react, the vampire attacked. She ran towards Gwen and threw her into a wall. The impact with the wall knocked her gun out of her hand and caused her to crumple to the ground. Francis fumbled for something in his coat, but the vampire saw him and leaped at him. Francis and the vampire hit the ground with a crash, sending a chair toppling in their wake. Francis struggled to fight her off, but the vampire was both unnaturally strong and unnaturally fast. She hit him repeatedly in the face, her nails leaving deep cuts in his face. As she lifted up her face to deliver a killing blow, Slattery jumped into the fray. He stabbed the vampire in the back with his silver knife. The vampire screamed in pain as Slattery dug the knife deep into her back, twisting it between two ribs.. Keeping Francis pinned down with her legs, she swatted Slattery away with one arm, knocking him out with a deft blow to the face.

Gwen slowly got up from and saw the vampire pulling Francis's head back to expose his neck. She charged the vampire and tackled her. The blow seemed to catch the vampire off guard, causing her to topple off of Francis. The vampire immediately caught herself and threw Gwen off of her. “You three are a nuisance,” Camden said, cracking her knuckles. “I haven't had this much fun with my food since I was a child.” She reached behind her and pulled the knife out of her back. She tossed it aside with a laugh.

“We will stop you,” Gwen said, trying to sound confident in her ability to stop an unnatural, inhumanly strong creature that wanted to slice upon her throat and drain the blood from her body. She tried to get up but collapsed as her side erupted in pain. At least one of her ribs had been broken from the vampire's latest attack.

“Oh will you?” the vampire said, laughing. “From the looks of it, you can't even stand up. Just lie down like a good meal and wait your turn.”

Francis got to his feet and stood in front of Gwen, protecting her from the vampire. Blood ran down his face from the wounds the vampire had inflicted. One of his hands was hidden under his jacket. “You're an abomination,” he said slowly. “I'll give you one more chance to turn yourself in before I kill you.”

The vampire bared her fangs. “What are you going to do, bleed on me?”

“Actually, I was thinking garlic powder,” Francis said. Before the vampire could react, Francis pulled out a packet of yellow powder and tossed it into the vampire's face, causing her to shriek and claw at her eyes. “You bastard!” she yelled. “You blinded me!”

Francis grabbed the vampire and threw her to the ground. The fight instantly left the vampire. She curled up into a ball on the ground. “I'm honestly surprised that the garlic powder actually worked on you,” Francis said. “I figured that it would have caused mild discomfort at best.”

The Beginning of Awesomeness? I Certainly Hope So!

It's the middle of July, which is quickly shaping up to be one of the best months ever! So far, this month has been filled with awesome things such as: sun poisoning, near lynch mobs in Raleigh (note to self, never wear a Confederate soldier's cap on Independence Day again), the best firework display south of the Mason-Dixon line, Elton John AND Billy Joel, the Sherlock Holmes trailer, and a glorious return to the Piano Bar. And in two days, I will be making a pilgrimage to Gettysburg to do all there is to do there. The only real downside is that I haven't been seeing much of a certain favorite person of mine. I guess that's the downside when you're girlfriend works 117 miles away.

But onto the real news of the day: I've been working on a story! For those of you who don't know, I actually dabble in writing. I'm not terrible at it, or at least that's what I've been told. I even have one check and a whole lot of increasingly nasty correspondence from a publisher to prove that someone would...or at least used to be willing to pay for it. I won't go into details, but that whole experience honestly turned me off to writing anything more than silly blurbs and shorts for a while. But now I'm back and twice as badass!!!

So, by the end of the week (maybe tonight if I'm lucky), I'll be twenty pages in. Twenty pages is a pretty important benchmark for me; it's when I actually start buckling down and writing as much as humanly possible. Anything that I've ever written that's over twenty pages has been finished to completion. I've never not finished a story that has passed this mark.

Anyways, if you're interested, just drop me a line. I'm always interested in feedback and whatnot. I think that it's helpful to have someone read a story as I write it. It allows me to gauge reactions and fix problems before they get out of control (something that I learned a little too late in one case.) As a little treat/tease, here's the first few paragraphs in my story. Hope you enjoy!


THE VAMPIRE KILLER STRIKES AGAIN, read the headline of the Washington Post. Someone had left a copy on Detective Gwen Paternie's desk. When she finally walked into the office after a long night in the field, she glanced down at the newspaper and softly cursed under her breath. This night could not get any worse, she thought. A U.S senator had been found dead, probably killed by the same murderer she had been chasing for weeks. Since the body had been found at 1 AM by a park ranger, Gwen had spent four hours drudging through mud and litter searching for evidence and three hours in a cold, dark medical examiner's office watching two coroners dissect the corpse. Gwen picked up the newspaper and loudly threw it in the trash. She was not about to read about what a total and complete failure her investigation had been up to this point. She knew this already. As she silently fumed at her desk, the other detectives in her squad quietly looked up and smirked. They knew that the hotshot rookie detective everyone hated was about to enter a world of hurt for her inability to crack the case before a US Senator ended up dead.

The debacle was not Gwen's fault. Gwen was a smart detective, a competent detective and she usually had a little bit of an edge when it came to solving cases. Gwen had a few things working for her that made her an excellent detective. She had a keen eye and a knack for seeing things that no one else saw. Gwen could also hear people's thoughts, a little fact that she kept to herself to keep her from being totally alienated from her coworkers. She didn't know why or how she could do it, but listening to people's thoughts was like being able to hear a whisper. With a little bit of concentration, she could hear whatever was on a person's mind. However, while being able to hear people's thoughts usually came in handy in her line of work, it was proving to be useless working on this case. While being able to hear thoughts was great for getting the truth, it unfortunately did not work on dead bodies, which was about all she was turning up in her current case.

Gwen had been on the case for almost three weeks, and in that time five dead bodies had sprung up in the Metro area, each one with a broken neck and a distinctive bite-like mark on their necks. The first four had been homeless people, bums and vagrants who no one would miss. There were no links that connected them to each other, besides the fact that they were all homeless and all had no family or friends that reported them missing. Each had been found in a different part of town, killed sometime the night before and left dead in a ditch or a stream. The only thing Gwen had to go on was the unusual punctures in the neck. The coroner had determined the marks to be made postmortem, judging mainly from the lack of blood in the wounds. The crime lab, meanwhile, determined that the marks were artificially made, as there was no human or animal who could have possibly caused them with their teeth. However, the marks did look like the bite of a vampire, and so the Vampire Killer name stuck with the media, leading the entire investigation to be surrounded by a perpetual media circus. Every single day, Gwen fielded at least a dozen calls about the case from different media outlets, asking if she had any leads, if she had any witnesses, and if she believed the killings to be based on the recent infatuation that teenage girls were having with vampires. And to each question, Gwen refused to give an answer.

I'd Personally Prefer to see the Bat-Symbol

Sorry for the lack of posts, my life continues to eat away at my free time like a killer whale eats at baby seals. I was convinced a month ago that my summer would be wretchedly boring. My girlfriend is up at Cedar Point, the Indians suck so badly that I'm half expecting Charlie Sheen to take the mound, and there's nothing on at all on TV (except for Craig Ferguson, bless his Scottish soul). Boy, was I wrong.

I saw a William Henry Harrison coin today at the bookstore. This is easily one of the three stupidest things I have ever seen. William Henry Harrison was the idiot president who was so vain he couldn't be bothered to wear a thick hat or coat out on his inaugeration day and promptly caught pnemounia and died. Basically, natural selection overruled the popular choice for president and selected someone else instead. Why in God's name are we recgonizing and honoring a man who's most notable achievements were a) beating up a bunch of Indians in Indiana and b) grandfathering the other failure of a president also named Harrison. I have to wonder what the hell the US Mint was thinking. I mean, this is what we're doing with taxpayer money? No wonder our economy sucks. We're putting out subpar money with a picture of a guy who's best known for dying at an inopportune time. It's just plain stupid.

Here's the best conversation I can come up with that could even cause William Henry Harrison to pop up on a piece of US currency.

Mint Guy 1: Well, the Sacajawea dollars didn't do jack squat.
Mint Guy 2: Who would have imagined that no one would actually want to use a coin with a person who, while historically relevant, is less popular than Jimmy Carter's older brother.
Mint Guy 1: Well that guy did make a great beer. So what should we try now? We already tried Dwight D. Eisenhower while his corpse was still warm and that didn't work.
Mint Guy 2: Then we tried an 11-sided coin with a picture of Susan B. Anthony that basically made her look like an angry school teacher instead of a prominent feminist of the late 19th Century.
Mint Guy 1: Why did we do that again?
Mint Guy 2: Hell if I know. I was high at the time. It was the seventies.
Mint Guy 1: Well, at least some things never change. (Takes a large puff of pot wrapped in a twenty dollar bill) I got a great idea! Let's put pictures of the president on the dollar coins!
Mint Guy 2: Dude, we already have that now. Have you ever looked at a coin? We have Lincoln and Washington and Jefferson and FDR. That's basically all of Mount Rushmore.
Mint Guy 1: But this time, we'll put on all the presidents that no one likes! The one's who don't deserve to be remembered.
Mint Guy 2: But we have that too. Grant's on the Fifty and Jackass McGee is on the 20. (That's Jackson's actual historical title by the way, Jackass McGee)
Mint Guy 1: And see how well that works out! Everyone likes to spend the twenty! I bet they'll like spending a coin with that one guy who died after thirty days! Or the asshat who basically let his friends run the nation into the ground and directly contributed to the Great Depression!
Mint Guy 2: I don't think this is a good use of taxpayer money. Won't this only encourage people not to spend dollar coins, thus weakening our crap economy even further?
Mint Guy 1: Do you have a better idea?
Mint Guy 2:....Batman? Do you think we can get the rights to the Bat-Symbol?

I swear, our country seems to celebrate mediocrity more and more nowadays. We used to actually strive for big things, like putting men on the moon or beating the Russians. We used to put a picture of the eagle landing on the moon with a big flag saying "SUCK IT RUSSIA" on our coins. Nowadays, we seem to be content with putting idiots on our coins while our Congressmen putz around bitching about Michael Jackson and the BCS Bowl Championship system instead of ACTUALLY FIXING SOMETHING. At this point, I actually sometimes consider moving up to Canada. Yeah, they're a bunch of lackluster socialists who couldn't think of anything better to put on their flag then a stupid leaf, but at least their health care works, hockey is on every TV station, and their beer is half decent.

My Greatest Fear

I've managed to stop worrying about a lot of things in my life. My fear of dying alone has largely been sated, as has my fear of dying too soon. I've also managed to stop worrying about the little stuff like the idiot driving in front of me or the kid who gets ticked off because I won't give him $100 for a book that looks like Moses used it back when he was going to Pharoh school. However, there's one thing that always nags on the back of my mind. And that would be when exactly are my friends going to realize that they are far too good for me and leave me in the dust. Now before you get on the whole "Christian, you're self-esteem is too low" kick, it's really not that.

You see, my friends are these amazing people. They're like family to me. Hell, my family considers them to be family. (My grandma calls my best friend part of the Asian branch of the Hoffer family). They've pulled me through some really tough times. And what have I done for them? Egged them into liver damage and alcohol dependence and filled their head with mildly amusing stories which have no value in the real world. I feel like I'm not holding up my end of the bargain. I mean, my friends are doctors and artists and engineers. And what am I? A textbook manager. A perfectly acceptable job, but not exactly in the same echelon as saving lives, building bridges or providing lasting contributions to culture. And I sometimes think to myself "Man, I am really holding them back. When are they going to see that and run like the wind?" Every time I hang out with them, there's this stupid thought running through my head that wonders if I'm going to say something stupid or do something to piss them off and that's when it's just going to click in their heads that I'm not good enough for them.

It's probably a silly thought, like most thoughts that I have. But honestly, it's the one that worries me the most. My friends are part of my family and my family is the most important thing in the world to me. And I kind of wonder when they're going to figure out when they could start doing a lot better than me.

Some Things I'd Like to Say to People

I'm tired and cranky. As such, here are a few things I'd like to get off my chest.

To the Iranian Government: Congratulations! Your regime just got pwned by twitter. Defeated by 140 characters or less, sucks to be you.

To Twitter: Don't try to use the Iranian protests as an excuse, your website STILL has no practical purpose.

To my cat: I swear, cat, I will start pawing at you when you're sleeping to see how you like it. And yes I know that you probably will like it because you're a cat and you like it when anything with a pulse touches you. But I'll do it anyways.

To Thomas Jefferson: I still don't get why you're on the nickel. You sucked as a president. Just sayin'.

To vampires: I'm onto you guys. Watch your backs.

To the people who live next to my apartment: I'm proud to be an American too, but you don't hear me blaring the song at 3 AM in the morning while screaming how wasted I am while I serve underagers (which I know to be underagers because they scream out "Wooooo! I'm 19 and I'm WASTED!"). Keep this up and I'm sure the police will be proud to be Americans while they arrest your asses for partying on a TUESDAY.

Life Lessons From Drinking

(Disclaimer for the following post: Alcohol is bad. I, in no way endorse alcoholism, binge drinking, or any of the other terrible things that stems from drinking. I firmly believe that alcohol is the devil's drink and that it is my mission to consume every last drop of it to rid the world of its corrupting influence)

Blame it on the alcohol, blame it on the booze, blame it on whatever you like, I love to drink. Over the course of the last couple of years, I've been involved with a few shenanigans of the drinking variety. Here are a few of the things I've learned from boozing it up with my compatriots.


The key to getting drinks quickly is to make eye contact with the bartender. If they are forced to acknowledge your existence, they will have to give you booze to make you go away.

When you stumble in and the cat shoots you a look that says "Leave me alone," you probably have had too much to drink. When the cat actually looks at you and says "Leave me alone, human, before I scratch out your eyes," you've definitely had too much to drink.

Don't pick fights with inanimate objects. You can't win.

Fire is not your friend. It never has been and it never will be. Don't let the fire try to tell you otherwise.

If faced with the choice between food or alcohol, choose the alcohol. Most beverages contain calories so if you drink enough, the hunger will go away...or you will die of alcohol poisoning. Either way, problem solved.

There are no such things as classy drinking parties. Only shitshows waiting to happen.

Yes, alcohol can take away your pain. But it comes back twice as bad the next day.

When it comes to blackouts, not knowing is half the battle.

Chances are if it sounds bad in your head, it will sound even worse coming out of your mouth.

Everyone has a ridiculous drinking story. If they don't, get them drunk and give them one.

And of course, don't drink and drive. It's a whole lot easier to stumble home the next morning then being dead. Just sayin'.

The Grand Christian R Hoffer To Buy List

This is the official Summer of 2009 Christian Hoffer To Buy List.

New flip flops
A new DVD rack
A new DVD player
The 1st, 4th, and 5th seasons of LOST
Patio furniture
New pots and pans
A chainsaw, just in case
A domesticated bald eagle that sits on my shoulder and glares at hippies for no reason
The Hope Diamond
A cannon to protect any high ground I might gain throughout the summer
A spare house to drop on Wicked Witches of any compass direction (particularly the Wicked Witch of the Northwest)
An underground lair for Moochie
A supercomputer for said underground lair
A full-sized portait of myself to cover the entrance of the underground lair
A cape, also for Moochie
A cape for the bald eagle when it decides to team up with Moochie
A satellite, preferably armed with lasers or at least Bluetooth capabilities
The Loch Ness Monster (I'll store her in the pool behind my apartment building)
An professional curling team located out of Norwalk Ohio.
A pride of Oompa Loompas to do my bidding and taunt visitors to the apartment with clever jingles


If I can manage to get at least half of these things by the end of September, it'll be a moderately productive summer.