robert.admin – Page 138 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

December 18, 2016

The Johnstown Flood (Review)

n 1889, the city of Johnstown was happy and prosperous (isn’t this always the way of things?). Located in a steep valley at the convergence of Stoney Creek and the Little Conemaugh River, it enjoyed the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the business of several steel mills. The people were happy, oblivious to the slightest hint of foreshadowing on my part. But up the sharp valley of the Little Conemaugh River, fifteen miles up, topping a side valley, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club enjoyed their scenic valley and beautiful lake. Composed of Pittsburgh’s elite, the rich and […]

December 18, 2016

OpsLog – SD&EA – 12/18/2016

thought my layout had been mothballed for a long time – a year. But Doc’s, with his life-changes and learning to run Coast Guard cutters aground, has had the SD&EA down for a half-decade. But he started prairie-dogging the club again, paid some dues, and the next thing I knew his clinic-back-room layout was back in the rotation. Yeah, rotation of one. Things have changed in the club. But this is about him and his phoenix of a layout. It’s still the same old layout you remember, but with the mainline stretched (through wormhole sidings and hyperspace bipasses) to Los […]

December 15, 2016

OpsLog – LM&O – 12/14/2016

agle Day – that day in 1940 when the Luftwaffe, desperate to end the ongoing areal Battle of Britain, threw everything it had at the Isle. And everything the English had, every fighter, was up. As Park replied to Churchill’s question of reserves, “There are none.” So that was last night. Never has ops been such an impressive effort with so many trains running. Overall, we didn’t finish until after 10:30 (3:30am on the fast clock). And we ran everything. Every damn train we could run made it over Harris Glen. Six freights, four passengers, three coal drags, a cement […]

December 15, 2016

Deadline (DOG EAR)

have to admit that I’m rather surprised at some of the web-efforts I follow, and how prompt they often arn’t. Specifically, the well-known XKCD and lesser-known Two Guys and a Guy – I love both strips, but recently they’ve been a little… off… in their publishing schedules. Others (Penny Arcade as well as anything “officially” syndicated) are always there. And that got me to thinking about my own blogging. I always blog – maybe nobody reads them (actually I just checked – most of them get about 500 hits or so. Whether that’s actual readers around the world or creepy […]

December 11, 2016

Mr. Mercedes (Review)

tephan King. You might love him or hate him but some image from his tales will stick with you, be it from words on paper or images on filmstock. A friend of mine always remembers the big wheel rolling through that vast hotel. For me, Roland the Gunslinger reloading a revolver one-handed. Yeah, we all got an ounce of nightmare fuel from him. Mr. Mercedes isn’t really scary. It’s a little disturbing, especially the bad guy and his relationship with his mother (which is skin-crawling perverse) (I could imagine King’s editors slowing their review pace down at some of those […]

December 8, 2016

New Media 2 (DOG EAR)

nteresting discussion this Thanksgiving after a couple of Go cage-fights with my sister. Of course, what else can siblings and the nieces and associated boyfriend talk about? What do we have in common? Media! Everyone connected through their Hulu and Netflix viewings. My brother was watching The Musketeers (didn’t know that). My niece’s boyfriend and I shared a laugh over One Punch Man. Some people had watched Chance. There was a difference of taste about Jessica Jones. And the women tittered over the coming revisiting of the Gilmore Girls. It’s the “New Media”, my sister explained. Yes, but (and sometimes, […]

December 4, 2016

Eternity Road (Review)

‘m not sure if you’ll relate to this, dear reader. You see, I am a cyclist. This means that I see another world you’ve never seen. All those overpasses you’ve parked under for a traffic light, or gone over? I’ve sat there on my bike and looked at them, removed from the scale of a car, seeing this massive structures for what they are outside of the cage of conventional putt-putt transport. When you sit under an overpass on the saddle of a bike and look at the forest of concrete supports, each as thick as a young redwood, bolstering […]

December 4, 2016

M36 and M42 (of course) (12/4/2016)

uddy Greg was supposed to come over for movies and dinner and some Go. I figured, with predictions for a fine night and Orion marked overhead at midnight, to set the scope up. But then he called and canceled (I can’t tell you the reason, but man, what a reason). So here I was with an evening suddenly free and a need to fill it. In the cancelation call, I’d mentioned my intention of the scope. He told me that it wasn’t high on his list. With the planets all shyly in conjunction, he didn’t want to look at pinpoints […]

December 1, 2016

Extinction (DOG EAR)

ated to see this one occur. TheJurassic publishing house has finally announced its closing. Got an email concerning this and ordered their last anthology. I first became aware of Jurassic when my wife and I visited The Tate Gallery in London and viewed apocalyptic biblical paintings by George Martin. In the gift shop I found a collection of books with short stories written by unknown writers, each picking a painting and telling a tale behind them. Of course, some were bad but some were really, really good. And I found that my copy was one of a series, with a […]

November 27, 2016

The 13th Star (Review)

Not much I can say for this review, sorry. I got about 25% of the way in and it just didn’t spark for me. Pretty much most of the self-published novels I’ve read off Kindle have this feature – the writers don’t seem to know their craft. They don’t know rule one – show, don’t tell. And this book was all telling. A planet blows up. Populations are moved from planet to planet. A hero is a saint of a guy. But there aren’t details, tales and anecdotes to support this – just a running account of events. Sorry, I […]