Horror Nights 2020: Week Two - Buyer Beware

 

I once read somewhere that buying a home is one of the 10 most stressful things you can do in life. After buying my first home this year, a year filled with unending terror, turmoil, and the Cheeto who shall not be named, I can say it's really not that bad. Oh it's bad. The searching. The bidding. The negotiations. The inspections. The graveyards the house is built on. The gruesome murders that took place in the house. Cultists performed ritual sacrifices in the attic. I mean what is a potential new home owner to do? 

Horror Nights 2020: Week One - Tales From the Video Store

 

Horror Night 2020: Week 1 - Tales From the Video Store

The scene opens on a small child wandering into the small-town video store. Barely 4 feet tall, the boy is transfixed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the establishment. The bright buzzing lights, the TV behind the counter blaring whatever movie the clerk happened to be watching, and the smell of cheap carpeting and wall to wall plastic and yellowing chipboard. Hundreds of options lay before the boy, and he knew he never wanted to leave.

 

Okay, this may be a bit of hyperbole, but it’s not far off. Going to the video store was and is for me, the closest thing I get to going to church. I believe it was Marcel Proust who said that video stores are the churches of the enlightened and the dreamers. Maybe it was a fortune cookie. Anyway, I love video stores. I love the idea of going out to the video store with the anticipation of finding the movie you want to see, only to end up having your hopes dashed because someone got there First. But everything works out because you still found something you wanted to see just as much. Maybe something you wanted to see even more than the first tile. I like the convenience of streaming, but it doesn't really compare to going to the video store. 

It's out!

I have officially entered the self publishing market.  Here it is, Track Marks.

So a little background, this is a novella I have been working on in different forms for a while. It's about a man that suffers a tragic loss, and it examines the effect of that loss, the love he experienced, and the memories that remain. This is very much a DIY affair, and it probably shows.  I had some help with friends that pointed me in the right direction as far as editing and thoughtful criticism. I'm happy with the result, and even now I would probably change quite a bit of it. But at some point you have to push the bird out of the nest. So read it if you like short, experimental, sort of depressing stories.  I've heard talk of Pulitzer already. No I haven't.

Coming Soon....

10 Ways Computers Have Destroyed Society!

Computers.  The scourge of the modern world!  They will destroy us all!  They can steal your identity! Steal elections! Become sentient and cause a robopocalypse!  Find out when guest contributor Alister Simms explains the 10 ways computers have caused society to crumble and will ultimately lead to our destruction!

Top 5: John Carpenter Films

Welcome to my new column, Top 5. It's fairly straight forward. Every week I choose a topic and give you my top five in the given topic. I'll give a short explanation for the pick and why I love or loathe it. The numbering is kind of arbitrary as I don't really think in those terms. I don't think most people do. Hard pressed, I don't think most people would be able to list a favorite anything. With it being October, I thought it only fitting that I give my top 5 John Carpenter films.

Welcome Back...

Just a quick welcome back. My how time flies when you have no time or interest in keeping up a regular blog. But if I did that wouldn't be very me, now would it? So what's the haps? Kids still say haps right? Slang is circular right, like fashion, music, and most art? Right?? I'm so old. I feel like some big things happened in 2016. What could have happened that I'm struggling to recall? I'm sure it will come to me later. Anyway, life (aside from being a living nightmare some days and being a terror filled fever dream other days) has been going steady. Did not get my novella out on time, but like I always say (as of right now), deadlines are for the dead. But it will hopefully be out by end of year. Here's a glimpse of the cover.

Wrapped up the first draft of one novel (a comedy of sorts), in the middle of first draft for a second novel (my version of a thriller I guess), and in the middle of outline for two more novels (one is really more of  a short story collection and a detective novel of sorts). Sorry you'll just have to take my word on that, because I don't share rough drafts or story details, because that would be too embarrassing. Now if I'm drunk and you ask I might, but honestly you never know what I will say, so buyer beware. I will also be trying out a new weekly Sunday column called Top 5. As you may have guessed it will be a list column, where I present to you my top picks on a variety of topics. I'll also have more quick movie reviews, because they are next to the easiest thing in the world to do. The easiest being to do nothing.