Adam Plantinga

My older daughter regularly wins at family games of Clue. I find this disconcerting because I have 20 years of experience investigating violent felonies whereas she is 11.

@MartinKaste It's not an arbitrary age, sir. I've put in the work and done the research.

@AdamPlantinga Interesting that you draw that line at 80. And she is

Ethics: Should one tell one's mother that that video of the duck kissing the cute kid is AI? Or is reticence the better part of valor?

@jasonallison76 You're not a full-fledged man until the old gastro starts acting up. Congratulations on joining the brotherhood. We meet at noon in the storage room of a Shoney's.

Due to some minor, gastro-related health issues, I've had to go off caffeine entirely. So I started brewing decaf late in the day. For the ritual. No caffeine hit, no jolt--I'm essentially paying good money to make my breath smell.

Ran the electronic scoreboard for my daughter's JV lacrosse team the other day but I'm hoping they'll give me a shot on the PA as color commentator: "Plantinga cutting through the defense like a hot knife through butter."

@PatrickBedwell @adrianmckinty I haven't but I've heard only good things. Will put on my short list.

@AdamPlantinga Have you read the Sean Duffy series by @adrianmckinty? It’s filled with glorious repartee between various elements of society and the RUC (N. Ireland PD) set primarily in the North during the Troubles. It could be a source for new material in the SFPD.

A cop I've been working in the same office with for a while said the first floor of our building smelled like an outhouse. I said, “You know what it smells like to me” and then we both said "Justice" at the same time. Man, I gotta come up with some new material.

@Mrdavemad That's high praise.

@AdamPlantinga But still.... that's Hill Street Blues-worthy/

@jasonallison76 Yeah, I don't think it's at all uncommon. You're good.

Author friends: at what point in the pre-pub editing process do you decide, having reread your own work approximately 478 times, that it’s complete and utter trash?

If you're wondering how many times authors can spell gray "grey" before their copyeditors throw their hands up in disgust and quit the profession forever, I have recently come across anecdotal evidence that you're still good at nine.

@huzzahmpls I can still grind 'em out. It's my knees that are creaky.

I've been submitting bios for upcoming writerly appearances. Thinking of starting one with "Born under a hunter's moon to itinerant hill people, Plantinga pens his books inside an abandoned blast furnace using an old, overturned coffin as a desk" just to see if anyone notices.

@BarneyShift Yeah, but hill people is funnier.

@AdamPlantinga As a fellow descendant of Netherlanders, aren’t the Dutch literally the opposite of “itinerent hill people?” Aren’t they more accurately described as “firmly planted in the lowlands?”

There's lots of scams out there targeting authors but the message I just got on my website from a Gmail account addressed to "Hi Author" with shitty punctuation and a vague, confusing pitch about marketing isn't one of them--this is going to propel me into the literary elites.

@adrianmckinty It's a storied cop hangout.

writing today in Caffe Trieste, SF where Coppola worked on the Godfather where George Lucas worked on Star Wars and where Kerouac, Corso, Ginsberg, Brautigan etc. etc. also wrote osmosis, sympathetic magic, surfing the vibe...call it what you like... 🤞🙂

@zhiheather not even that. Man.

@AdamPlantinga Have you slid across the hood of a parked car though? 😀

Things movie cops have done that I have not: 1. Jumped from a speeding car onto the wheels of an airplane just as it takes off. 2. Fist fought a suspect on a moving rollercoaster. 3. Intentionally dislocated my shoulder while underwater in order to slip out of the chain restraints that some South African hitmen tied me up with before dropping me off the pier when I uncovered their gold and drug smuggling operation ostensibly shielded by diplomatic immunity. But there's always tonight.

@MarkGreaneyBook That neck roll that he does.

@AdamPlantinga Promise me that, should number #3 every happen, you will "revoke" their diplomatic immunity with a 4inch Smith.

@FXRegan Former cop.

@AdamPlantinga Was he/she a cop or a soft science type?

Was in a work training where the instructor kept referring to suspects as "bad actors." I've heard this term before and always get a kick out of it. You mean we're investigating Tommy Wiseau?

@D25610 Sorry, that sucks.

@AdamPlantinga Our daughter has a Hyundai. She walked out to go to work and it was gone. At 1530 the Police found the car running with a “juvenile” driving. Junior was a gang banger that had caused $3500 in damage. No charges filed. I wanted to provide a “simple” assault but was stopped.

Recently heard a defense attorney in court refer to her client's crime as a "simple 10851" (CA code for driving a car w/o consent). Sure, it's her job to minimize such things and legally, calling it simple indicates there were no aggravating factors (like a weapon being used). But the word choice bugs me. You know who probably doesn't consider this crime so simple? The poor soul who walked out of their home ready to drive to work or school or to a doctor's appointment and realized their freakin' car was stolen.