Five Reasons Why I Don’t Do the Grammys

“And lo, all across the land there was a great ourcry, with wailing and gnashing of teeth and shaking of fist, for in the west it was the time of the gramophone, and the people, while they were vexed at what they saw, could not help but watch.“ Once again we find ourselves in the [...]

The Green Acres Effect

After much delay at the hands of family matters, I’m back on the case of finishing The Amazing Secret of the Castle Omi La for this year’s VBS. A little bit of history here. The first VBS play I did was The Terrible Misfortune. It was a pirate-themed show. It was influenced by every cliche [...]

Mad Men

There’s a moment in Apollo 13 where Tom Hanks is giving a tour of NASA to some visiting dignitaries. He takes them past a room that is filled with the components of a computer. “Look,” he says, “this computer now only takes up an entire room!”1 It’s a cloying line. It’s not the type of [...]

Burned, or, Why I Watch TV Now Instead of Writing

A couple of years ago, I started writing a comic mystery novel. It would have been the first novel in a series, and I was planning for each book to have a central mystery, with a long-term story arc that would stretch across ten books or so in the series. My protagonist was an American [...]

Over- and Underwhelmed

Well, I’ve got all 900+ posts on the blog all categorized… now I’ve discovered that I can’t pick up a new blog template from the old account without starting a completely new blog – at least not yet. There’s word in the Blogger literature that a conversion period is coming up, so maybe that will [...]

The Sci-Fi Blues

Here’s the second part of Scoob’s missive wherein he asks a very good question: What is it about Sci-Fi that is so difficult for TV to get? His point is that, in an era that is ready to embrace the genre as its own – there’s even a channel dedicated to it now – why [...]

“Jericho”

While momsitting last night, I happened on Jericho, the post-apocalyptic TV series responsible for this post. I decided to give it a watch, but was only able to stand about twenty minutes before giving up. However, that’s not going to stop me from writing this review: CREATIVE:So what do you think, JB? SUIT:I’m sorry, but [...]

The Fudge Factor, or,”How Much Can I Get Away With Before My Audience Deserts Me?”

An interesting exchange of e-mails with my old college buddy Scoob has given me fodder for not one but two posts. This is the first, and the second will straggle in at some point in the future. Scoob started the ball rolling when he sent me this link to a blog wherein a physicist nitpicks [...]

Scary Monsters

More fodder from my friend Scoob, spinning off of an e-mail discussion we were having about comic books part of which was referenced here. Only this part of the conversation has to do with fear. Namely, things that scared me as a child. Growing up in the 1960′s was a fairly idyllic time, at least [...]

Kung Foot

My friend Scoob sent me this link right here about the latest Hollywood regurgitation, namely a big screen version of the old 70′s TV chestnut Kung Fu. I wasn’t a follower of the show when it was on. I only watched it a couple of times, just enough to pick up on all the tropes [...]

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