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September 1, 2016

Scooby Snacks (DOG EAR)

kay, so it’s a bit of a misuse of the phrase. Scooby Snacks were given to Scooby Doo, the dog, and Shaggy, the late-bloomer cowardly hippy, as rewards and courage-enhancers. The term I’m looking for here are the more traditional doggie snacks in cartoons that would make the hound vault straight up into the air, then come leafing down in a state to total bliss, they were so good. But “Doggie Snacks” wouldn’t get you in here, but a reference to “Scooby Doo” would. And here you are. So, what was the point of this? The point is writers’ bliss, […]
August 28, 2016

The Cartels Jungle (Review)

eh. Nothing much here. Spaceman comes home from years at being at perpetual war on the frontier (two conglomerates are fighting it out), only to discover that the evil workers and their unions have become the third stool leg of  tyranny. Fine. But he doesn’t care since he’s going to marry his girl who happens to be the psychiatrist who just invented a mind-control device that can be used (in good hands) to cure insanity (which seems to run rampant on the hopeless homeworld). Of course, there is no way, with evil and power and mercenary corporate cops all over […]
August 27, 2016

OpsLog – FEC – 8/27/2016

e all can’t have good days. Well, I had a great day. First, I tugged out a cut of rock cars out of City Point. Ran them down to Frontenac, ran around the train then cruised the layout on greens, a neat run. Also got to brief a first-timer in the Eau Gallie shuffle, explaining the trick of it. And he did just fine. Smiles all around. But then I was on the Buenaventura Turn, a clean run down without any interruptions. Since I’ve done this job before I had no problem sorting out the cuts and putting everything where […]
August 25, 2016

Go! (DOG EAR)

here is a power to storytelling. It makes me wonder of all the lives it might change. How many people look at a story (in books, in movies, around a campfire) and can trace a lifechange back to that? Perhaps there are people who found happiness and grace from modeling themselves after positive role models out of the endless worlds of human imagination. Of course, granted, there are also those who hold guns like gangstas, who smoke, and who ruin their lives because of simplistic images presented to them. Who knows – perhaps somewhere in the 1844 a promising doctor […]
August 24, 2016

OpsLog – LM&O – 8/24/2016

razy night at the club house. First, after all the work we did on electrical things over the last month, another failure, this time caused (we think) by a bad toggle or turnout motor in Martin Yard. So, rain delay until Fearless Frank and Big Bob could root around in the catacombs and bypass it. If we had to lose a turnout out of the dozen in the throat, this was the best. So, lucky break for us. I ended up on the dispatcher panel again. The night was fun but weird – trains weren’t sequencing like I usually see. […]
August 21, 2016

Guns, Germs, and Steel (Review)

aught out this week – still slugging through Seven Eves, and didn’t get a short story done that I was also attempting a stopgap with. So, to fulfill my effort to review every week (something I’ve managed for years) I’m hauling something off the shelf and doing it out of memory. So, Guns, Germs, and Steel looks at the broad idea of racial technological acceleration. Why do some races have everything (and are rich, floating in iPads and Burger Kings and nuclear bombers) and others are nothing more than muddy townships of rusting castoff technology? Is it the people of […]
August 18, 2016

Punked (DOG EAR)

o I did the three R’s on a friend’s book, The Eyre Affair (Received, Read, Reviewed). Attempted to Rave but, as mentioned HERE, I got Rejected. Man, felt bad about this. However, my wife and I did do dinner with this person a while later. It was one of those comfortable evenings; a quiet restaurant, good conversation, good food. And even though she’d bombed the book, I mentioned it anyway. I thought it was good, regardless. Hey, everyone’s a critic, present blogger included. Oh, and minor spoilers ahead, that is, if you are going to read Jane Eyre and wish […]
August 13, 2016

Perseid Meteors (8/11/2016)

’ll bet that after a night of seeing cup handles on Saturn and seas on the moon, Galileo slept in. Not me. For the Perseid Meteor shower, JB and I linked up with a couple of CFAS members over at the Geneva gun range. I got about three hours of laying down in the evening before heading over (couldn’t drop off to sleep – my brain was cycling at 100hrz and my stomach was tossing about those broccoli quesadillas). So with the lawn chairs loaded in the mini, we left the house at 12:15am and got to the site at […]
August 12, 2016

The Blockade Runners (review)

eeded something to tide this column over while I chew through the massive Seven Eves. Of course, I turned to my old friend, Project Gutenberg, for assistance. Was looking, actually, for Journey to the Center of the Earth (which I’d just seen (the old one, not the crappy, stupid new one. Please!). Anyway, it wasn’t up except in audio format. But I did find this book, The Blockade Runners, which you gotta admit looks like a promising short story. So without further ado, let’s start the review. And my opening hook to this review, late yet relevant? So, you think […]
August 11, 2016

Andre (DOG EAR)

o last week, we chatted about Athos, the literary character I see myself as. This week, we’ll look to Andre-Louis Moreau, the character I wish I could be. Andre, a lawyer from Gavrillac, is a man famously described as “born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” He gets royally screwed (actually, in this case, nobly screwed) by the Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr, who butchers his friend and forces him (like Athos) to hide in the gutter. But Andre undergoes a series of transformations, eventually becoming a man of influence, power and deadliness. […]