JamesSavik

The sports media is a terrible gristmill for athletes who are not media savvy. It will eat you up if you say the wrong thing. Many colleges and universities actually coach their kids how to deal with it. College bound athletes: do yourself a favor and stay far, far away from Twatter.

Old Southern Church ladies have a well-deserved reputation for being persnickety about damn near everything. If you are ever fortunate enough to taste their cooking, you'll forgive them. Dinner on the grounds is Baptist for let's eat ourselves into a stupor.

If I'm late with the cat food, the yowling protests are pitiful.

Ummm... sausage, biscuits & gravy.

Isn’t zoinked what happens when you eat too many Scooby snacks? It sure worked on Shaggy.

My Karma on Reddit is only 10,000 because I'm a little too free with my zings of stupid people. It's a dirty job, but they seem to be attracted to Reddit, and somebody has got to let them know their participation trophies are only important to their mama.

Aliens are not invading. Why would a civilization who can cross light-years invade us with weather balloons? Now, we Vampyre, we've been here all along. Hollywood never did get us right, despite all the hints we dropped. Bela Legosi? Humph! Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt were better, but they've never done us justice. We were stranded on Earth, oh about sixty thousand of your human years ago. If that date rings a bell, that was when Neanderthals went into a steep decline and modern man became dominant. No need to than us. Neanderthal was... pretty useless. One sniff of a female and they lost their minds. Don't be conceited, some of you modern men have the same problem. Vampyre are just like anyone else. Some are good, some are bad, some are apathetic, and some are mad as hatters. One lie from Hollywood we really resent is that we drink blood. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, we do need something from you, but it's hard to explain. We need what you humans might call life energy. We drain a little, you get sleepy, and it's been restored when you wake. No need for murder and the associated mess. Yes. We can take too much, but only the mad ones do that. When the Council discovers a rogue, they are dealt with and will never be a problem for humans or Vampyre again. Damn. I've said too much. Don't worry. You won't remember a thing when you wake...

I got into a yammering match with someone who is even a bigger conspiracy nut than myself. Project Blue Light. PPPPBBBTTTT! 😝 K-Mart is dead and gone.

Anybody remember punk? It was fun for a while.

I don't often review stories, but this story sort of kicked my ass. It had me from the first chapter and didn't let go. It dragged me from chapter to chapter, looking for the protagonist to catch a break. Just hang on. He will catch some breaks, but it'll take a while. Don't look for hearts & flowers in the first third of this story. There aren't many. In fact, if you've got bad stuff in your background, wear a helmet because it will trigger you. (I had a nightmare or two.) Typically, there are several ways kids in abusive situations react. If you've been to therapy for abuse, you might remember the scapegoat, the hero or the people pleaser. Almost every kid in an abusive situation is a mixture of these qualities. The scapegoat is always wrong and when things go bad, it's their fault. The hero is the overachiever who makes all As and wins state sports championships to win the abuser's approval. The people pleaser (or sometimes called the mascot) is just so cute and sweet, no one could possibly hate them, right? (Last is what I did: stay stoned, so you don't care. I don't recommend it. It doesn't end well.) Parker's understanding of the psychology of kids in an abusive situation is exceptional. He knows how they react, how they blame themselves and how they apologize for anything and everything whether it's their fault or not. Trust is something they just can't do. They don't stand up for themselves because they've had any resistance beaten out of them. He writes the fatalism of the futility of this existence with a stark, brutal elegance. Stephan/Eric/Andy is a psychological study in how abused kid's brains tick. I won't give any spoilers, but it should be in a textbook. I have heard many soldiers say that I wasn't a hero, just a survivor. In some battles, it takes a hero to survive. Bravo, Parker. This is one of GA's very best.

There was an old sailor named Ed, Without a single tooth in his head...

OK. I'm going to provide you one of my secret recipes. Don't spread it around. This salsa makes others look sad. It's not blazing hot, but it is delicious! Needed: Food Processor Dried chili peppers: 1 each Ancho, Pasilla and Mulato (Chosen to be mild, if you want hotter salsa, pick hotter peppers) 5 large tomatillos 1 Jalapeno pepper, cored without seeds 3 cloves garlic 1 medium-sized white onion 1 teaspoon salt Instructions: 1 - with the dried Ancho, Pasilla and Mulato peppers, remove the stems and seeds, and boil for twenty minutes in a pint of water. 2 - once boiled, put the now hydrated peppers into your food processor with 1/2 cup of the water they were boiled in 3 - run food processor and make sure the peppers are well shredded, set aside 4 - heat oven to 450 (232.2 C) 5 - cover a cookie sheet with foil 6 - cut tomatillos in half and put on foil, cut side down. Also place Jalapeno and garlic on foil 7 - roast tomatillos, pepper and garlic in the oven for 15 minutes 8 - quarter the onion and place in the food processor 9 - Add 2 tablespoons of the Ancho, Pasilla and Mulato mix to the food processor, save the rest. 10- Add salt, roasted tomatillos, garlic, Jalapenos, and drippings from the cookie sheet to the food processor. 11- Run the food processor, and you're done. This recipe has a citrus, smoky flavor with modest heat. If you want more heat, pick hotter peppers, like Serranos or hot Jalapenos. This recipe works well at a Super Bowl party where not everyone wants a fiery salsa. The additional pepper mixture that I haven't used will be in my next batch of chili.

There are many different flavors of mental illness. It's not simply the gibbering madness often portrayed in the media. There is DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) madness with actual mental illness driving it. Then there are people so mean, depraved and twisted they appear, for all practical purposes, batshit insane, but aren't actually mentally ill. This provides authors with serious challenges to write a mentally ill character. It is possible to write an insane character, but it takes some research to get it right. If the character is acutely mentally ill, what is specifically wrong? The author needs to know to write the person authentically. In this case, calling them cRaZy just doesn't cut it. You can really get lost in the weeds with this. Even a cursory examination of the literature will show you that this is a huge and complex body of knowledge, and much of it doesn't mean what you think. Words like psychotic might give you the image of an axe wielding serial killer, but the truth of that condition is not at all what you think. If you look up the definition of Psychosis, you will find that it is defined by delusions and hallucinations, but this in turn can be caused by organic disease, other mental disorders (like schizophrenia) or substance abuse. If you look up schizophrenia, you'll find that it shares many of the same characteristics as psychosis, they're just wrapped a little differently. This is an area where it is easy to get lost, and you could do research for years and still miss the nuances. Make the assumption up front that cRaZy isn't exactly what you think it is. Research is useful for discovering the broad outline of the disorder, but it's best to keep it simple. As an author, we know what the poor sot's diagnosis is, and can write him in such a way to make his behavior consistent and believable. There's a huge difference between evil and mentally ill. Sometimes they appear indistinguishable, but will show up most clearly in the character's motivations. For example: the Son of Sam Killer (David Berkowitz) was, in his mind, receiving messages to kill via his dog. (Don't blame me, I didn't write him). This is clearly a case of a profound mental illness. Compare and contrast Berkowitz to a pimp who kills one of his girls for holding out on money she made from a trick. The motive is clear(greed, dominance), and does not rely on supernatural messages. This is clearly a scumbag move, but he's not cRaZy. You can really get in the weeds with this, but it's not entirely necessary. Actions will show the true colors of a character. You won't need to give your readers a link to the DSM-5.

Every time I call tech support,..

The Imperial dynasty was a long line of arranged marriages between the Royal House and the great houses until the Jackson Coup. Prince Roger, survived an assassination attempt, overthrew the coup and regained the throne for his house. Prince Roger had the temerity to marry a Sergeant of his Royal Marine close protection detail. Despite the morganatic nature of the marriage, Princess Nimachet was wildly popular with the public, and bore the royal heir, Arthur.

Hummm... perhaps GA could confer Knighthoods for exceptional writing achievements. Sir @Comicality has a nice ring to it. ^ I'll bet he blushed.

With the talent here, we could make something exceptional. In fact, that's not a bad idea.

Star Warz should have been a license to print money for Dizney. However, the writing for Darth Maus was so bad, I'm confident that at least a dozen writers on this site could have done better. Can you imagine how much better it would have been if six of our best had done the writing? @DomLuka @Comicality @Dabeagle @Cia @Myr Bob Iger - fire Klutzleen Kennedy and call us. We'll put you back in the black. Hard.

I used to enjoy post-apocalyptic stories, but now they make me nervous. Every time I think our politicians have reached rock bottom, they discover a new nadir. They are in for a shock when the people wake up and start constructing guillotines.

The arrival of the Greek phalanx was a rude shock on the battlefields of the classical period. It imposed tight discipline and teamwork their contemporaries could not match. Alexander the Great conquered the known world with the phalanx. Given the metallurgy of the time, nothing could stand against it until the Romans arrived with their shield wall and iron weapons. You may have noticed in Peter Jackson's treatment of Tolkien's The Hobbit, in the Battle of the Seven Armies, the Dwarves of the Iron Hills used a form of the phalanx.

The scrumptious eye-candy at the gym has no calories.

Our inscrutable wizard knows the corporate media just repeats government lies to maintain the existing power structure... which needs all the help it can get. Besides for exposure to annoying pro-oligarchy propaganda, one of the most enervating things I can think of is walking down a country road in Mississippi during July or August. There's a reason our area code is 601. We're that close to hell. 🔥

Baker Mayfield's career was a disaster until he got to LA. Under Sean McVay's tutelage, he's improved his numbers across the board. Good coaching matters. Mayfield may not be a starter next year, but it won't hurt him to carry a clipboard and learn.