Quote by DenimAngel
I prefer Spotify over Amazon ... more variety in what you can find
My beef is that Amazon for some reason removed an EP by an obscure Finnish band that I like. I only discovered them because I am on a social site with the original lead singer's sister and when she posted about them recently, I realized it had vanished from my library on Amazon. Spotify has it along with their new single. And I am finding things Spotify does better technically.
So I am pulling double duty right now, also slinging java at some less reputable joint down the virtual street.😉
For here today, we have Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. Teas are Scottish Breakfast and Russian Caravan. Cold bevvies are refreshed.
I have a conundrum. I have an s-f setting worked out that I quite like but can't seem to get a story going to introduce it. It's near future alt-history with aliens involved. Fun stuff to work through but this is the downside, I find, of focussing on worldbuilding. A world without a story may as well be for a roleplaying game. That's part of why there was never a successor to Night Of The Wind. I had worked out a lot about the world, but really only had that one story. Though to be fair, my comp winner The Goddess Dances is technically in that world as well, just so far removed in geography and style that it doesn't really seem like it.
Quote by Meagananne1986
The,Sound of Silence. Dated, but still stirring for me.
Hardly dated given that the Disturbed cover kind of brought it back in a big way. I have been a fan of the song seemingly forever (it came out the year I was born).
Spiritbox are a new-ish band from British Columbia, Canada (though many of the members are American). New EP came out today along with videos for the songs from it that didn't already have them. Lead singer is Courtney Laplante, originally from Alabama but living in Victoria, BC since her teens. She co-founded the band with her husband, Mike Stringer, who plays guitars and other instruments.
An ape comes dancing and singing into the cafe. After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd rushes out screaming in horror.
Good morning! I'm putting some Fire Roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe on for the coffee drinkers. For tea, we have Scottish Breakfast and Earl Grey Cream. Cold drinks are lookin' good.
I hear the baseball season ended with Texas getting their first World Series. Good on them. Now I guess we start talking about spring training again. 😜
Later, alligators.
Ape pirouettes and prances merrily out of the cafe.
Sigh. With the passing of Halloween comes ... winter. Snow on the ground and still falling on and off. Maybe I should retire and start snowbirding somewhere.
Since I mentioned that my most-viewed story is my first, thought I would highlight it since it doesn't have many comments and I suspect many of my regular SS and (redacted) friends missed it.
Voice of Ice actually predates StoriesSpace. I wrote the original version during a blizzard in 1993-94 or thereabouts. Back in those days, I wasn't publishing anywhere, just sharing with friends.
Years later, one of those friends asked permission to use it in a webzine he was editing. I said "yes" and provided a new draft. Which he ignored and did his own edit of my original, which I no longer especially liked for various reasons. Oh well, at least I had actually had a story in "print". My friend passed away not long after that and his webzine, while still up, stopped publishing new material and became archival.
Then along came StoriesSpace into my life. Wanting to get in on the writing side of the site and still not happy with my friend's edit of Voice of Ice, I grabbed a copy and edited it into the form I wanted. Voila, my first story on here.
Voice was supposed to be part of a "horror mythos" a la Cthulhu but I never really did any more stories in that milieu (well, some of my more recent work like Down in the Well and maybe Something could easily fit, but were not written with that intention).
Quote by AnnaMayZing
I absolutely detest football (soccer), but I don't hate this...
I've had a few favourite songs that came out of footie tournaments. "Waving Flag" by Knaan, "Forca" by Nelly Furtado, probably some more.
Here's Nelly from the 2004 Euro. She's Canadian but her family are Portuguese and she has always been heavily influenced by that culture's music.
So apparently I was the top author and has the top story in October? Cool. Got notifications when I came in and shiny new badges, too.
Rearranged my featured stories on my profile. First is my latest, second is my most liked, third is my most viewed (which, not surprisingly, is my first).
We have some Flowerpot Island coffee on in the coffee pot. Teas are English Breakfast and Russian Caravan. Iced tea and lemonade are fresh in the fridge.
Hope you had a nice Halloween, all.
Going back a bit and listening to a playlist of the now-defunct Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. The band gave us, among many good things, singer Floor Jansen of Nightwish and the unrelated guitarist-growler-songwriter Mark Jansen of the current bands Epica and Mayan (who announced recently that he and partner Laura Macri are having a baby). And, of course, lots of terrific music.
'Tis the day to do the Monster Mash, eh.
And to help you do that, you can load up your pumpkin mug (see above) with some Deathwish Coffee Dark Roast (very dark, I would imagine). For teas, we have Wakoucha (Japanese Red/Black) and Pumpkin Spice Chai (I hate the stuff myself but some might appreciate the seasonal blend). I made some nice red cherry Kool-aid for one of the cold drinks so you can pretend it is .... BLOOD!!!! Mwahahaha.
Have a happy and safe Halloween, gang!
vanishes in a poof of smoke
Quote by verbal
Man does that guy have some great screenplays to his name.
William Goldman is probably one of my favourite screenwriters when I actually look at his output over the years. And he also wrote novels like The Marathon Man and The Princess Bride and wrote the screenplays for the adaptations of his novels. He even had unused drafts for movies like The Right Stuff and Mission Impossible 2 (hard to imagine someone rejecting a screenplay from Goldman, but apparently it happened).
One day until the big day when the dead rise and living pretend to be dead. Mwahahaha! And I have put out special coffee mugs for today and tomorrow to celebrate.
Coffee is Valhalla Java Odinforce blend from Deathwish, created for legendary heavy metal guitarist Zakk Wylde, currently playing in the band Pantera but who has played in many other bands over the years, including Ozzy Osbourne's backup band. Teas are English Breakfast and Earl Grey Cream. Cold beverages are mixed up and on standby. And don't forget the cookies (I'm having a vampire and a bat).
And just so you can see who I am talking about, Zakk Wylde plays guitar in this performance by metal legend Ozzy Osbourne.
Good morning! Ape feeling better, though still achy. Having surgical mesh implanted in your side does that, I guess. Still, at least I am improving.
Coffee du jour is PC Gourmet Medium. For teas, we have Assam and Irish Breakfast. Pitchers are washed and refilled with fresh iced tea and lemonade.
Toying with an s-f setting and starting to work through a possible first story that will introduce some of the basics of the setting as well as setting up some characters. I'm thinking of his as a "universe" that could have different stories about different characters in it. It is the 21st century near future but with mysterious aliens. I posted more in the world building thread.
Quote by DenimAngel
Scamps latest adventure in honor of halloween
Today got away from me so spooky cookies tomorrow
A spooky good time tale
#stsp https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/childrens/scamps-adventures-12-a-halloween-tale
Ape happy. New Scamp story is quite good. Very fun Halloween.
Started notes for a new s-f universe. Still not sure what the stories in it will be like. Might end up being something I build that I can plug various stories into, even for that other site.
Basic premise is that aliens are more or less besieging Earth. They have banned space travel (they destroy anything that goes higher than 100,000m above sea level) and more or less enforce global peace by destroying military bases, military formations in the field, and such with brutal, powerful attacks from orbit when a war breaks out. If we give up things like nuclear weapons, then they will lift the "Alien Laws" as these restrictions are called.
This has a number of impacts, including things like losing the use of geostationary orbit and other high Earth orbits for things like GPS and communications satellites. Transoceanic cables come back into vogue for carrying communications between continents, high altitude atmospheric vehicles like balloons and planes are used for spying and collecting weather data, and so on. Still thinking through ramifications.
Rumours and conspiracy theories abound, of course, including the belief that the aliens actually have secretly landed on Earth and have somehow infiltrated governments, corporations, etc.
There's a couple core mysteries involved:
Who are they? Other than a few one-way communications in which they handed down the "Alien Laws", we have had no contact with them and have only seen their spacecraft.
What is their real agenda? Are they actually trying to force us to live more peaceably? Or some more sinister operation happening?
To be honest, even I haven't worked out those details yet.
