JamesSavik

Asking which story is your favorite is like asking what your favorite song or movie is: unless you are 12, you probably don't have one. The more stories that you experience, the more forms, the more genres, the more authors; the more favorites you will have. With all due respect to this site and the powerhouse authors that are here, there is quality fiction scattered all over the web. Here at GA, the required reading list could go on for a lot longer than I intend to type. You couldn't go wrong starting out with the Log Way or Desert Dropping by Dom Luka. I love all of Comicality's work but my particular favorite is My Only Escape. Christopher P. Lydon has a large body of excellent work that you can stay lost in for weeks. Little Buddha's Some Day Out of the Blue is a lot of fun. Vance Lista's stories are in a class by themselves. dkstories, Jack Scribe, Luc, Nick James, Luc, Ghost Ryder- its all good. GA has high standards and crap doesn't make it here. Other sites you'll want to check out: Awesomedude.com is home for EleCivil and Graeme whose Leaves & Lunatics and New Brother respectively are classics. While you are at AD, check out Freethinker's Courage & Passion and Centennial Park. CrvBoy.org is another site rich in content. Just off the top of my head, my favorite over there is Tappings by KIT but it's also Brew Maxwell's home. Deweywriter.com is home to the classic Brian & Pete Saga- a real classic of the genre. www.storiesbydriver.net is home to the incomprable Driver 9 one of the best authors on the net and in print. Falling Off a Log and The Quarry are masterpieces. Last, but not least, you can find an author called the EggMan at the Nifty Prolific Author page. His story A New Life is very popular. Well, it's late and I'm tired. I've given you some real gems. Enjoy and let us know what you think.

I guess your microwaved rat burito didn't go down so good. I like the kangaroo burito better but it still kicks going down.

This is an amazing mosaic of the star-forming region of Cygnus. Suitable for wallpaper perhaps?

I guess Children of Man is another sub-genre of sci-fi: post-apocalyptic like Mad Max, the Omega Man or Jericho. I must confess a fondness for fifties B&W "Monster" movies. Not that I would go out of my way to watch one, they are like a comedy that wasn't intended to be a comedy. By trying to be serious, they are hysterical. Oh my God, it's eating the tank... Typical plotline is that there is a nuke test and an ant/spider/scorpion becomes huge and eats New Mexico.

It would be a bargain if it wasn't for that 300M euro debt...

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday. Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia. Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP. Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache. "Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Graeme- You should rent or get hold of Babylon 5. It really is a great story. The writer sold it as a 5 season story arc and that's what we got. The Bab 5 universe isn't nice or politically correct. The races have various levels of technology. There is nothing "magical" like the Force from Star Wars, magic technologies like transporters or replicators from Star Trek, or copious amounts of chese that afflict a great deal of sci-fi. IMHO, B5 is one of the best sci-fi series ever done. Sci-Fi Books that I have enjoyed: Isaac Asimov: Foundation series. Frank Herbert: Dune... (the first book was my favorite) Arthur C. Clark: 2001, others Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game, others Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5, Long Walk to Forever

Hysteria. Fear. Point the finger, claim moral superiority, claim the public places. As gay people, haven't we seen this crap before?

Let's play what if. OK- smoking is banned in all public places by and act of congress and a note from the surgeon general. Consider this very carefully: who is to decide what is good for you? The senate? An industry panal? What's next? What other products will be banned or freedoms recended because it's not good for you? Will beef be bannned because of cholesterol? Will sugar be banned because its bad for your teeth? Will guns be banned because they hurt people? Will homosexuality be banned because you could catch HIV? Before we fix the behavior of others, we should consider which of our behaviors others might seek to fix and if we should grant others such powers over us.

Let us know what you think about Science Fiction. Please reply with other movies, television series or books that you like. Questions 1, 2 and 4 may have multiple answers.

One of my souviners of playing football was an ACL repair which was done back in the mid-80s. The knee is never quite the same after that surgery and wouldn't set off anyones gaydar.

I smoke but I am a conscientious smoker. I don't smoke indoors. I don't smoke in resterants even in a smoking section. I go out of my way NOT to be a jerk about it. If there were more smokers like me, I doubt there would be too many problems. That being said, there are some passive-aggressive, anal people who go out of their way to be offended by nothing in particular and the subject of smoking gives them a club to beat people with. These people I will politely call little bitches. I've seen some people, usually women, all the way across a caf

MTV... is that the network with all those dreadful reality shows that no one watches anymore? MTV is like the fifty year old adolescent that goes to the bar and hits on 20 year olds. If it was ever cool, nobody in the place can remember it.

The Network model is difficult to implement because software limits what you can do and people have been thinking relational/tabular data models since the 80s. I can make horizontal links but that is merely a band-aid on a software system that is intended to be hierarchical because generations of computer science students have been told that the network model is passe. Interestingly enough- the NSA and HomelandInsecurity databases, made by people with mega$ and the best and brightest tekkies, are said to use a distributed hybrid network/relational database. I doubt that we can download it anytime soon. We may talk business around the first of the year.

It has been a very long time sicnce I read it but the first three books of the Dragonlance series did an excellent job of showing a very coherent magical system. Basically there were three schools of magic- white (good, clerical type magic), red (neutral elemental based magic: air, fire, water & earth) and finally black magic (death/evil magic). Practicioners of magic are limited in scope to the spells that they can cast first by the school of their magic. Next by the spells that they have learned. Mages have to have formal training and registration as wild mages are considered at worst a threat or at best a nuisance by the Crown. Just because you are a mage does not mean that you can cast anything you want. Mages don't come off their spells easily. If someone uses one of your spells to do something criminal, you bear some of the responsibility. Masters are high level Mages that can teach higher level magic but they won't teach just any old Sot the stumbles along. They will want to know who you are, where you are from and your reputation. Even then a master may tell you to get lost if they just don't like your looks. Your magic is unique. To other mages a spell cast is like a signed painting. Other Mages will know what you've done. Mages feel the flow of magic and can feel normal low-level spells cast up to a half mile away. Powerful high-level spells can be felt continents away. Anywho... I thought that magic system made more sense than many of the others that I've seen or read about.

Bah. I'm from Mississippi and know these sorts quite well. I would rather go to the dentist than watch them.

A disclamer keeps us from being sued...

Teachers often call their students with higher IQs "disruptive". Usually its because smarter students push or challenge them and are more work than the stoned kids that just sit there like a puddle of mush and make a C. As far as the RED dorm room goes, I don't see it as a problem. Her concern is that you can't paint over it when you move out. The trick is that when its time to go, it takes a coat of primer in addition to whatever color that you paint it back to. Primer is a thick, light gray color and does a great job of covering even the darkest colors. It also come in anti-fungal varieties which is great for dorms. You'll find the bar to be raised quite high with respect to disruption at the college level Colin. After the sixties generation and their bombs, riots and shoot outs with the National Guard, it's hard to get school administrators to even raise an eyebrow over anything less serious than a shooting spree. I will say that the classics always work. Get hold of an uncut copy of Animal House and/or Van Wilder for inspiration. The old horse in the Deans Office gag or the basket full of bulldog cream croissants to the mean jock frat will always work. However- if you want to become an true immortal, someone the kids are still talking about as a real disruptive genius fifty years from now, you need a classic original gag. Something new and untried which takes some real doing. Broke, bored college kids can be ingenious and it takes a real stroke of inspiration to come up with something truly unique. New technologies like computers and bluetooth make new generations of gags possible. I was a odd ball in school: a hybrid Jock/science GEEK. I liked pranks but my goal was to get away with it rather than take the heat and the fame. My best moment is when I created a sugar based coating for bars of potassium metal. We went to an away game at our arch-rival school and I flushed a half dozen of these things. The time delay element was what made it really work. When the first one went off, I was a quarter mile way in full view of the principal. The explosions left CRATERS 2 1/2 feet deep, 4 feet wide. No body got killed and the statute of limitations has run out... The Monday after "the bombings" my Coach called me into his office and accused me of doing it but he couldn't figure out how. I took the fifth since he was fishing. If I had told him how, I would have incriminated myself. The Challenge: Tell us about your best "Disruption"/prank, gag and or practical joke. Did it work? Did you get away with it? Did you get what you wanted out of it- revenge, laughs, a lesson in humility to an asshat? I may have grown up but not nearly enough to lose my love of a great GAG. ______________________________________________________ Code of Ethics for pranks, gags and/or practical joke: 1: No one gets hurt: pain ain't funny. 2: Property damage is acceptable as long as it is minimal (<$40) 3: A Mess is preferable to property damage. 4: If someone gets hurt, its off and you help. 5: Its good to come by the next day and help clean up. 6: It's about mischeif not malice. 7: Race, sex, religion and sexuality are off limits.

Is this Aaron of the Mail Crew or another Aaron? Best wishes!

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Take your time David: there is no race except with yourself. Quality is worth the wait. Say hi to your cats for me.

I agree with Graeme. TMI (Too Much Information) is a common problem with online gay fiction. Overdescribing a person is a temptation that really should be avoided. For instance: there are tons of stories with lengthy descriptions of characters. I can't think of any at the moment and that is my point. Graeme's story New Brother had striking characters with minimal description. Their looks were much less important than their characters and actions. While there was no lengthy description of Adam, Stick, Giant, Break or the twins I have a distinct memory and mental image of those characters. I would suggest that new authors read Graeme's New Brother or any one of several stories by Driver 9 to see how striking and memorable characters are developed. Graeme will blush in modesty but his work really is top drawer. He is also a master at the short-story. Check it out if you want to see a number of things done very well.

Doctor Laura would want the wife and kids to leave him, Doctor Phil would want to kick his ass for hurting horses, and Doctor Ruth would be impressed that he was f-ing horses.

I'm sorry gentlemen but that politically correct dog just won't hunt. It is bad enough that we as gay people have to put up with hyper-Christians and Mormons, I'll be damned if I'm going to say nice things about a bunch of sick religious fanatics that hang gay teenagers. Not all Muslims are fundamentalist wackos however, the calm, reasoned voices of Islamic Liberals and Moderates are silent for fear that they will be murdered. What is outright frightening is that some of those fundamentalist wackos are in control of countries which are economically and militarily powerful [like Iran and the United States].

After his success in the Potter films, he can pick and choose his roles and doesn't have to play just any old part that comes his way. This has been a killer problem for a number of child actors making the transition to adult roles.