First, I'd like to thank whoever it was that pointed out that "imput" which I'd used a few times in these blogs, isn't even a word. It's "input". Apparantly I'd been making that same mistake my whole life.

I talked with an old friend of mine yesterday, asking if she'd mind being named as the sole reason I got my lone tattoo 28 years ago. Sometimes you never know. I had one friend who has vowed never to talk to me again, after being mentioned in "Have a Nice Day", and has so far made good on that vow, even though the things I wrote about her were actually kind of flattering. Apparantly, however, her former elementary school students were coming back years later, asking her out on dates, which she felt was a poor reflection on her as a teacher. So, I learned that the best thing to do is get approval before writing, or else play it safe and use a different name. Fortunately, my friend Diane had no reservations about being in the book, and had no idea that she was the inspiration behind the inking back in a time when tattoos on high schoolers were a pretty rare thing.

After talking to Diane, I flipped through "Tha Hardcore Diaries" for the first time in a while, and could finally see why so many people within WWE were rumored to be less than thrilled with me after the book's publication. I was really pretty rough on the company, and three years after writing it, I'm shocked that the powers that be (mainly Vince) allowed so many negative musings to be published. Don't get me wrong, I don't personally regret writing any of it, but I am really surprised that the book wasn't edited down to matchbook size.

I think most of you will enjoy the new book I'm working on, "Crossing the Line", which is coming along nicely. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I will try to give out a little sample here and there - which is the case this week, as I update lists of favorite things from "Foley is Good", in a chapter I will call, "A Few of my Favorite Things". This past weekend, I was thrilled to visit Santa's Village, along with Storyland and Six Gun City in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Many of you know of my fondness for Santa"s Village from past books, so I won't get into that here. Instead, I'd like to write about  Knoebel's Grove Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pa. - an incredible place I visited with two of my children a week earlier. So here it is, a sneak peek at "A Few of My Favorite Things", from "Crossing the Line" to be published in the winter/spring of 2010 by Grand Central Publishing.

Hold on, not so fast. It appears as if that sneak peek will have to wait a couple of hours, as my son Dewey needs to use the computer to do his homework, which I should point out, should have been done last night.