Blog entries

I'm Baaaaaack!

Phillip J Greene — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:04:25 +0100

Well, I am finally able to get the SWAG blog feature to work on my balky computer. It had something to do with Java script. Anyway it now seems to be working. Prepare yourself for the onslaught. I have been blogging regularly on my book site: http://www.runningonemptybook.com. BP gave me lots of material and it looks like another spill in the Gulf may be developing to provide more cannon fodder. Stay tuned.

Phillip

Review of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Erin Wilcox — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 01:38:18 +0100

Overall, this was a highly enjoyable book, worthy of the many awards it's won and appealing to a much wider range of readers than the young adult. I particularly enjoyed the opening and use of setting. Gaiman turns the home into a graveyard and the graveyard into a home. Bod's graveyard is rich and varied, complete with not only the expected tombs, but ancient burial tunnels, portals to the underworld, and unhallowed ground. The nooks and crannies of Bod's...

Marmaduke-A Review

Jan Strasser — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:09:13 +0100

I just saw this movie and yes it is a silly dog in a silly movie. The comic strip was that way, too, but it held something. The movie does, too. It is definitely made for children but cut a little deeper.

The story runs in a typical fashion with cute characters doing cute and obnoxious things. The human counterparts are a bit goofy and the story line is clique with the father taking a job and letting it take over his life.

What was different was some new stuff, a story line of a...

"Turnagain" appears in newly released Cold Flashes: Literary Snapshots of Alaska

Erin Wilcox — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:18:17 +0100

I am pleased to announce that Cold Flashes: Literary Snapshots of Alaska, edited by Michael Engelhard (University of Alaska Press) has been released! This anthology contains flash fiction and short nonfiction pieces set in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Among them is my flash fiction story "Turnagain," posted below.

This lovely collection also features black-and-white photographs enhancing the mood cast by the tight, powerful prose. Digital and e-book versions are available. For more in...

A FAREWELL (Meetup assignment-Tell a Story with Symbols

Jan Strasser — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

She had always been my best friend; at least it felt that way. A real * of a gal, always loyal. Kiki was a year ahead of me in the academy. I had joined as a ~, barely able to mix, let alone train, but I had insisted and there was no where else to go. My planet- yes my planet, had been wiped out, the people at least. We were a young species, just looking up into the blackness, and a marauding band had , , and destroyed what we had and what we were. I had managed to call for help,...

ELLA, THE REAL CINDER IN MY LIFE-Assignment in Meetup REwrite a Fairytale or Myth

Jan Strasser — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

I thought my life had been all planned out. When I was a young girl, my parents had arranged a good match for me and I was content to let my story unfold. Something went wrong, and after putting so much effort into my marriage, with two difficult children later, my husband died on me!

At first I was shocked. How could he do that, to me! I had put up with all that crap we wives have t...

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OF A SUPERHERO-Meetup Assignment

Jan Strasser — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Cactisis- A super woman, with a prickly character, created in the Sonoran Desert. She can shoot needles out of her green skin with deadly accuracy; don't ever get in her way. She stands for right but will often feel out of sorts, irritated. You can't break through to her except when she opens her heart on the cooler nights of spring. She shelters life in many forms by protecting them through harsh conditions, superhero attack and dry spells.

FROM THE BOTTOM UP?

Jan Strasser — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

When I first heard this idea from President Obama I scoffed. Throughout history the people at the top create the jobs and it trickles down to the "regular" folks. I thought it was political pandering to the masses. However, when I put that together with the idea of the "Classroom of the Future" (an idea I scoffed at, too) something clicked. Now, mind you, I have little patience for the cry for a classroom filled with the latest gadgets and all we have to do is provide more and funds magically...

Adam a movie review

Jan Strasser — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

I just went to see a preview of a movie called "Adam". It was quite good and Adam was an extraordinary person. The story seemed wonderfully complex but had just two story lines; Adam’s struggle through life with Asperger syndrome and the struggles of his girlfriend in her family life. Each was compelling, but Adam’s struggle was more alien like a Spock with one foot in the human world and one in the Vulcan world of no emotion. The story lines played off each other quite well..

Encounter with the Alien

Jan Strasser — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Joan asked her about the color of her eyes. “They come from the sky,” smiling, she added,” At least that is what my mother always told me.”
Allyahn’s eyes are purple. Not violet, but purple. Purple is not a frequency of light, it is a combination of light-red and blue. Ally’s eyes are not the light violet of Elizabeth Taylor’s, oh no! Violet is between a magenta and blue, a pinky purple. Ally’s eyes are true purple, that great dark hue of C...

FIENDISH DESIRES Meetup Assignment from June 26th meeting

Jan Strasser — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:39:39 +0100

Gerald held tight to the side of the boat. The turbid water was getting to him. He had planned a small outing, sneaking a look at his neighbors through the borrowed telescope. It wasn’t really an instrument for this purpose, but it would have to do. All Gerald wanted was to find a good location from which to watch his glorious fire. Tomorrow, the small incendiary device would detonate and this reclusive arsonist could watch the house go up in flames. He would finally be able to watch th...

Ad in the Future for the Downloading of Education-SciFi Meetup Assignment Create an Ad

Jan Strasser — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Tired of Ignorance?

Afraid Your Children Will Have the Same Fate as You?

AN ESSAY ON THE CLONING-TRANSFERRING OF CONSCIOUSNESS As described by Cory Doctorow in Magic Kingdom

Jan Strasser — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Cloning yourself and in effect never dying has a certain appeal. We naturally don’t want to die, avoid thinking about it, and dream of utopias where it does not occur. However, I take exception to the way it is described in “Magic Kingdom” and indeed other science fiction stories. I don’t want you to think I don’t like the idea. If we could truly move our “souls”, that part of us that is truly “us” into another body and hop skip our way th...

The Big Green Pool

Jan Strasser — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:57:11 +0100

The world has become chaotic at our house until last night. Our pool was green when the cover came off. My niece was coming to visit and I thought we should have the use of it. Well, no........ Then the investigation began, tests, tests. Thought it was algal, nope! Turns out it was calcium. The pool was put in in 1958 and it finally had enough concentration of Ca to precipitate out. It is like a coral reef in there and you can't go in without foot coverage. The Ca is yellow and the pool is bl...

Sunshine Clearing

Patricia M Mazzarella — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 07:27:09 +0100

Sunshine Clearing

On Turning Seventy is most likely nothing that you would expect. Let me set the record straight. My body is pretty good. My mind is the best it has ever been. And I am happy, with the usual life event exceptions. From my point of view, I am just now finishing my middle age which began about fifty. And I plan to live at least to a hundred and ten… not unrealistic in view of having found a physician who has the gift of understandi...

Avatar Week Part III: Going Na'vi

Erin Wilcox — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 23:53:03 +0100

Yeah, I know, Avatar Week on my blog was in early January, but I have more to say, so I hope you'll indulge me, imagining, if it helps, that we live on Venus, where a week is 819 days. With Avatar scheduled for theatrical re-release this August, the film remains near the surface of American cultural consciousness, due to resurface again, as soon as everyone has absorbed the new Twilight movie.

In my first post on Avatar, I argued that a great part of the movie's popularity stems from i...

Reason For Being

PABlo Bley — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:19:01 +0100

My continuing objective is to develop edgy ideas that are timely, yet futuristic - created with compassion and a caring consciousness for the earth's fragile resources.

Did you know?

The number one most environmentally damaging effect is the automobile. The number two most environmentally damaging effect is industrial meat production...which pollutes our air, water and land while eating up valuable resources.

"A reduction in meat consumption is the most pote...

Writing Ideas and Inspiration

Peggy Greene — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:00:48 +0100

I'm like Pooh Bear. Writing ideas come and find me whether I'm ready or not so I end up backlogged with them. Sometimes that is annoying. You can be churning along with a novel chapter and P L I N G, a totally different story or idea pops into mind. It 's like a dog gnawing on a delicious bone when a tennis ball comes rolling along in front of you. What do you do: gnaw or drop the bone and chase the ball?

Tough choice, so you hold the bone in your teeth and frantically sear...