Ron

You'll want to take a look in the Writer's Corner, Shade. There is a lot of very good advice to be found in that corner of the site.

How nice. Bravo!

The mood is set well in the beginning. The MC appears to be contemplating suicide—he has received bad news—and a character from his past is used nicely to further the mood. The interruption of events by the scientist is timely and progresses the story. In the introduction (setting and mood), the mentioned lab test is left hanging and never touched upon again in the story. The test is the fulcrum, it's the culmination of events that leads the MC to consider the river below, and something of this nature shouldn't be left to conjecture, I'm thinking. I very much enjoyed the description, especially the limits, of the portal. That was well done. The indecision and the final revelation of what advice is to be given to the MC's younger self catches the reader up and brings that moment alive. Then we come to the final moment, the point at which the entire story sings . . . Be proud. It was a brilliant moment. Right up until the MC 'suddenly has an idea' and a moment of recklessness obscures the overriding message. Yet the story remains an encouraging one despite the faults and I liked it.

Very nice, congratulations Valkyrie!

I thoroughly enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy but I re-watched X-Men: Days of Future Past last night and that scene where they bust Magneto out and Quicksilver speeds around the room was stunningly well done. The rest of the movie visuals were as top notch as we've come to expect from the franchise. X-Men probably won't win but it deserved to be nominated for sure.

This is true. I once went home from the bar with a _________. I still get the shivers when I think about it!

The MBTA transit system doesn't have noticeable difficulties in the summer so I don't think that was a major issue. What was surprising though was that the conventioneers didn't fan out from the immediate area of where the convention was held. Most of the city did not gain the business that was promised from the opportunity.

Boston was very nearly a ghost town when the Democrats held their convention here. The city warned the populace about traffic and crowding so well that those that could take off, did. It was one of the easiest times to get around the city as I can remember. Not the least of the bonus was being able to catch a seat at almost any restaurant in town.

I would just like to add that I ended up with a huge bruise on my inner thigh from my adventure. And here I thought that I had escaped unscathed.

And I would ask for sunny days at or above freezing, but it's hard enough getting around without having to walk through knee deep water trapped at the intersections. As it is there are slush puddles ankle deep in some of those areas already. The thaw is not going to be better than the present condition when it finally arrives, I'm afraid. Minus 8 tonight and minus 2 the next one but no days are reaching the 32 degree temperature that you're enjoying, Mike. Be well.

See, that just proves my point, any "idiot" can make an unrealized mistake. One only seems like such a one after the fact. Thank you for the sympathy and a big Amen to your last comment. p.s. Boston's average seasonal snowfall is around 45" or so, if I remember correctly.

I did get a break for a couple of years and spent the winters in Singapore. With a stopover visit of Sydney and Melbourne, very nice.

Ooh, did this happen to you too? LOL I know, you got womped way earlier than we did. But I know what lake effect snow is like (Lake Erie) and I was sympathetic to your plight.

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I don't believe it was done on purpose. Otherwise yes, it would be time. The first time my partner and I did the shoveling, I laugh now, after we enthusiastically cleared the roof (no deck) we unenthusiastically had to re-shovel the area around the door. True story!

I have only been out of the house once since January 27th, the date of winter storm Juno, aka. The Boston Blizzard. I made three trips to various stores and groceries the day before in order to stock up on supplies so that I could tuck-in and wait things out. Things went well, my supplies lasted quite a long time. My first journey out was to the grocery again, fresh produce was my target, and in that goal I was successful. The journey allowed me to marvel at the mountains of snow at intersections, easily ten to twelve feet tall, and the fact that the main street (Massachusetts Avenue) that runs through my neighborhood, the South End, was so full of snow that parking spaces will not be found until sometime in late spring. Sidewalks were navigable by the space of the barest width of a shovel and the only way to let oncoming pedestrians pass by was to either climb onto a car height (or higher) mound of snow, hop onto someone's half-assed shoveled steps or get real cozy. No passing. Fun stuff. Keep in mind that before the date of the big winter storm Boston had previously had only dustings, and then one storm that left about an inch on the ground when the storm began. I watched the snow fall through my oriel window in my living room and from the warm safety of my condo. It fell into and onto my below street level backyard garden and slowly covered everything. About twenty-seven inches of cover, or there about. A few days later, another eighteen or twenty inches (one is never really sure), and then some more, and some more again. We now have, in inches of snow, the high level of seventy-three point six. A record. More is on the way. Part of my condo exists as part of an 'ell', and by way of description these are extended additions (one to four stories tall) added on to the backs of townhouses all over the city and at some point in history (vague, I know). If one were to look at a townhouse from the side, you can imagine the 'L' shape at the back, hence the name. My building dates to 1857 but I have no idea when the two-story addition was added. But what this all means is that the roof over my living room is in the ell, and the roof is flat. As opposed to the roof of the main townhouse portion, which is peaked. A few years ago, neighbors put a deck on part of it, as was their right. But when snow gets to the levels that we have reached, the snow needs to be shoveled off of the flat part—roof and/or deck. That happened two days ago. My newish, upstairs neighbor (now newish deck owner) hired someone (who I know) to shovel the snow into the back garden. Fine so far. I saw said shoveler head up the fire-escape as it was getting dark. I usually pull my curtains (big, heavy, velvet curtains) closed around that time, and I did. What I didn't see until the next morning was that all of that snow had been shoveled to the sides. Whatever can be the problem you might ask? There were two mountains of snow set against the brick wall sides of my home and garden, with peaks in the range of nine or ten feet tall. So? Well, mountains have bases, and the base of mountains left and right, blocked each of my fire exits. One being my bedroom window and the other a steel door egress into the garden level from a second bedroom—with pretentions of being an office. What am I to do? Funny you should ask. Since my garden is completely snowed in and I didn't see this as a problem originally, why shovel? It means I could not get into it from its street level gate (reached by a set of stairs, also snowed in) and so I asked my next-door neighbors if they would pretty please open their back gate and let me in. I can access my garden by way of their ell addition and my buildings fire-escape (simplified version). Which I did by walking around the block and entering from the rear. So far, so good. Now, a funny thing happened on the way to the Emporium. Accessing the fire-escape was just a few pushes of snow and a completely unnecessary, though fun, break to smash a gigantic icicle hanging from the back of my neighbor's townhouse ell. If you've stuck with me, here is the really fun part. I make a treacherous step across open air onto the ice-laced wrought iron steps of the fire-escape, and again so far, so good. I tossed my two shovels (kept the straw broom) over the handrail and into the snow—they didn't sink very deep. Hmm. The next step was into the garden and was questionable. What to do, what to do? I went for it, and rather than walk to the bottom and wade through the snow, I straddled the handrail near the bottom and stepped. I sunk mid-thigh into the snow; my left leg did not follow. So there I am straddling the handrail, one leg stuck in the snow, the other trapped under a step on the fire-escape and holding a straw broom over my head for balance. Get the picture? Don't panic, Ron! It's below freezing (a high of 22°F today), I am below street level, and there is no one who can see me. Will I freeze to death? Will they find my desiccated, freeze-dried body come spring? It's amazing how fast thoughts of not-so-real possibility and craziness can flash through the mind. I had a broom, right? If you don't panic you can find a way. I was able to unseat my foot from under the step and let my left leg join its partner mid-thigh into the snow. Is this what it's going to be like? From there it was a definite slog, each leg sinking into the depths, until I was able to reach my back door entry. A journey of about twenty-four feet through perilous territory—all under foot and under snow—of planters, patio pavers upturned by cherry tree roots and a pile of pruned tree branches which didn't make it to the curb for recycling last fall. SUCCESS! Well, partial success, anyway. I did free my back door from the clutches of the mountain of ice and snow—it took an hour. But I saved my bedroom window for tomorrow's adventure.

I think that's around $7.20 or so a gallon in US dollars, on average if the figures pan out. That's a lot of money.

That was awful, just awful, to watch. Pretty senseless, too. Would you buy a series based on this pilot? That is the question studios would have to ask themselves. You know what my answer would be. Another production company, with a different vision, might serve the story better.

A version of this was supposedly shown as a commercial during the super bowl. I watched it afterward on you tube. CNN article and video

I dare say, you're right, Russell. Good point.

I do believe you're right, James. You're a different person than you were and you do have different tools at your disposal to work with. Tools that younger version didn't have access to. Use them to your best advantage, I know you will.

I can just picture the two coworkers creating a tableau vivant across their desks: Monsters being chased by the angry mob (pitch forks and all) with a choice selection of 'Scream Queens' in their horrific poses scattered among the mob for maximum effect. What a picture!

I envision the whole sexual aspect of A.I. as beginning very similar to the scenario in the movie Her. A movie that I consider underrated. The act of affection, as it is in the movie, is easily seductive, to both. Then, because the A.I. does not truly have the same spark, if you will, as humans do . . . they would grow in a different direction than we. And we could only hope that that direction would not lead to our demise, I'm thinking.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” ~ Marcel Proust

Bravo!