From the monthly archives:

March 2009

Twice burned

March 30, 2009

I recently experienced the self-inflicted misfortune of watching two similarly styled films based on video games: Hitman & Max Payne Each featured an array of decent acting talent (not A-list, but well above C-list).  Each was also pretty well shot and offered some interesting visual effects.  But each was also severely lacking in the story [...]

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Lost Week

March 25, 2009

“If you are serious about wanting to be a writer, your days of being a member of polite society are numbered.” Stephen King from On Writing. Had a bit of a breakdown in The Schedule last week.  It came about because of my social life.  Usually I don’t have much of a social life, at [...]

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Academic Writing: The “Psychic Vampire” of Writing

March 5, 2009

In New Age terms there is supposedly such a thing as a “psychic vampire”. The concept of the psychic vampire revolves around the idea that there are people out there who, by their mere presence, can suck the life out of you. Even standing beside them in line can produce effects not unlike those associated [...]

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creative writing exercise – first fifty words

March 1, 2009

I found myself just needing to plunk down some words this evening.  So, I cast my gaze across the online landscape and found a prompt at First 50 Words that intrigued me: write 50 words about “the sun” or inspired by the provided picture.  I took inspiration from the image, though my reaction is an [...]

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“Words, words, words.” (Hamlet, II.ii.192)

March 1, 2009

This week, a student of mine gave me the latest issue of National Geographic which features an article about a church in Sicily that contains the remains of nearly 2000 mummified corpses.  While the photographs of these centuries-old priests and parishioners were repulsively intriguing, one portion of text jumped out at me:   “A number [...]

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