My Personal Ecclesiastes

miles

© Miles Rost

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There is no me. There’s just doing the laundry, paying the rent, riding the bus, going to work, going to school. You know. Nothing that’s important. So here I am feeding coins into the washers and dryers at the laundromat, trying to read a book and realizing that I don’t enjoy it. In fact, I don’t enjoy anything. Not a damn thing. I eat good food. I mean, I live in San Francisco, so there’s a lot of good food. But so what? I’ve considered suicide for a long time. I walk out of the building and into traffic.

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 13 “Family Style”

ql13-1

Scene from the Quantum Leap episode “Family Style”

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This week’s episode (number 13) of Quantum Leap is called Family Style. Here’s the IMDb summary:

When Ben leaps into an Indian family to try and prevent their beloved family restaurant from burning down, he finds an emotional connection with their matriarch through memories of his own. Magic and Jenn share a surprising revelation with Ian.

Ben leaps into the eldest daughter of an Indian family who owns a restaurant in Portland, Oregon in 2009 (Given that the same basic technology and lifestyles existed then as now, this is less time travel and more “I mysteriously injected myself into someone’s family”). He (again) has absolutely no issues being in a woman’s body (no awkwardness with breasts, no periods, no nothing). In fact the only difference is that he has a nose piercing. He also has mad cutting skills and apparently always wanted to be a chef. I think this is an effect of the writers of the show rather than how a guy would really react (see Sam Beckett/Scott Bakula in the original show).

I’m sorry, but if I woke up one morning with breasts and no penis, I’d lose it.

My wife worked in a professional kitchen for over twenty years and listening to all of her stories, I can confidently say, that Ben suddenly performing well in such a kitchen is bullshit. Being a good “Betty Crocker” in a kitchen at home is light years from working in a restaurant.

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Night Delivery

sat

Image source: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

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Motionless, she stood gazing down the tunnel. The path extended as far as the eye could see, encased by walls of grimy bricks. That wasn’t very far since Colleen’s flashlight battery seemed to be dying.

“Not now when I’m so close.” She didn’t dare speak out loud. It was bad enough that they could find her by her light, but without it, she would be blind.

She readjusted her backpack, the load seeming to get heavier with every step. Colleen asked herself for the thousandth time that night if the job was really worth it. It paid well enough so tuition and textbooks weren’t a problem but that was because of the potential danger.

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Frank and the Plot of the Hypnotizing Slime, Chapter 3

magic

© James Pyles

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I suppose you are wondering where the baby chick came from and what it won. To answer that question, we have to visit an alternate dimension, an alternate Frank, and the secret character of Danaerys.

You see, the evil Frank who is planning to take over the world with his hypnotizing slime, is modeled after the real Frank in the real world where you, the reader, lives.

Frank has been friends with the little girl and her Grandpa who are writing this story for many years.

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Take Me Out to the Ball Game

royals stadium

© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

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A ball game’s a ball game even at “The K” in Kansas City.

Jeff scored a hot dog and watered-down beer and relaxed back into his seat. The Royals were playing against the Texas Rangers but that didn’t matter much to him. It was kind of strange to be watching baseball in February, but it was in the low 50s, so he thought a light jacket would do.

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Frank and the Plot of the Hypnotizing Slime, Chapter 2

chick

© James Pyles

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In the evil mountain hideout, Frank the spider said, “The hypnotic slime projector is now finished but the slime itself needs another day to cool in the vat. Then it will be ready.”

“What will we test it on?” Roger was another evil spider and an expert on reconnaissance, which means he could search out an area looking for the enemy.

“The nearby town of Hayfield.”

“A human city?” Even Leah was surprised.

“It’s a small town, maybe 100,000 humans total,” replied Frank. We’ll just have enough slime to control all the humans. We fire the slime cannon at dawn.”

At the good spider cave, Lilly said to her friends, “I’ve almost got the force field projector done. It needs a few hours to charge, but fortunately our hideout is wired for power.”

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My Short Story “The Simulated Woman” Was Accepted Into the Anthology “Existential Hologram”

simulated

Scene from the 2017 movie “Blade Runner 2049”

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I was just informed by Starry Eyed Press that my cyberpunk SciFi short story “The Simulated Woman” has been accepted into their forthcoming anthology “Existential Hologram.”

I don’t have any information about when this will be published, no cover art (the image above is taken from the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049), really nothing at all except the anthology description listed when the open submissions call became available:

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Specter

fox

© Lisa Fox

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The building was old enough to have a fire escape. It was perfect. Now that Brian’s divorce was final, he was free to move back to the heart of old downtown and be nurtured by urban variations. He was so close to finishing that best seller he had always wanted to write. The sum he would be offered for the film rights alone would throw his ex into a spasm. He sat at the keyboard and tried to put his fingers to work. Nothing happened. A mist slowly seeped through the walls. The alluring ghost said, “Perhaps I can help.”

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Frank and the Plot of the Hypnotizing Slime, Chapter 1

Frank

© James Pyles

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This is a story my seven-year-old granddaughter and I started last Halloween. Like most children her age, her interests move from one topic to the next, and it was ignored for a long time. When she showed an interest in it again, we worked to finish it. I added the ending page last night.

Now she wants to publish it. I’m not aware of any publisher who would be immediately interested, so the story now appears here on my blog. It’s all in fun and I hope you enjoy it. If you think your children and grandchildren would like it, by all means please share.

Oh, and my granddaughter wants to write a sequel.

Chapter 1

Once upon a time there was a spider named Frank. He was evil but there was a good spider named Lilly. And a team that was evil too teamed up with Frank. Frank and the team of evils had an idea. They will hypnotize Lilly with hypnotizing slime. But Lilly had a team of spiders too. They were good like Lilly. But Frank and the team didn’t know. Frank and the team also didn’t know that Lilly had a force field but the force field could only be up for 10 minutes. Frank is working on an evil weapon but it’s really hard to make. But he is distracted because he is falling in love with Lilly.

But wait. How could he be falling in love with Lilly? To answer that question, we have to visit their first encounter, a random meeting a little while ago when Frank ran out of flies and went to Lilly’s web to ask for some spares.

“Um, excuse me,” Frank said. “I see your web is full of flies and mine just ran out. Could I bother you to spare me a few?”

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My Novelette “The Fallen Shall Rise” is FREE Starting February 14th

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My SciFi space opera novelette The Fallen Shall Rise is available as a FREE download from Amazon onto your kindle from today, February 14th (a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your science fiction friend or companion) through the end of the week on the 18th.

This book is part of the 224-verse as published by Starry Eyed Press.

It ends somewhat on a “cliffhanger” (well, not exactly), so I’m in the process of finalizing my draft of its sequel and my first novel, currently called “The Second War”, although things are still a bit fluid.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll find in “Fallen”:

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