Maze - mace

Quote by verbal
Chicken and Beer

I take it the menu is fairly obvious? What kind of chicken, though? Roast, BBQ, fried, all of the above?

Quote by verbal
Talia's first week of work seems to be going pretty well, if a little overwhelming.

Sounds about right for first week on a new job. Hope it keeps going pretty well.

Good afternoon! Thanks to verbs for coffee and tea.

Weather is a okay going into our long weekend (Civic Holiday we call it but there's a variety of names across the parts of the country that have it). Might shower Monday. I plan to write plus have some housework to do. Have a comp entry for another site basically done, then hopefully tackle my long gestating sequel to Spirits of Tan Maldrin, which is now set in not-Iceland. Oh, a couple trips in various stages of planning, one a weekend getaway for our wedding anniversary, one a possible next big trip (assuming we don't push it off to next year, which is possible, in which case it might be our next next big trip).

6354, open windows close the door

Quote by verbal
Writing about…wait for it…spiders!

I hear you have some expertise on the subject. 😉

And don't worry, we won't reject you. Tease you, taunt you, and maybe gossip behind your back, but never reject. 😊

(And you do know I'm kidding, right?)

Gaze - Haze

Good morning!!!!!

Coffee is a special treat: McCafe. No, seriously. My son swears by it. Prefers it to Timmie's.

Teas are English Breakfast and Earl Grey.

Cold beverages, iced tea and lemonade, are refreshed.

Given the heat dogging so much of the world, I have put in a separate freezer and stocked it with Kawartha Dairy ice cream. Many flavours to choose from.

Later.

Game - Gale

One of my favourite metal bands (after Nightwish) is Blind Guardian. They are pretty old, having started when I was just finishing high school. Lead singer Hansi Kursch has an incredible voice both for screaming and clean singing. This is the title track of their fifth album, released in 1995, here done live in 2016. It is one of my favourite Guardian songs at present (though I am still working my way through their extensive catalogue).

One of my high school-university friends got married in his backyard (they were already living together). It makes for a nice ceremony but a lot of work, I think. Our son got married kind of "on the sly" (just them, witnesses, and the Imam from a mosque in their area since his wife is Muslim) during the pandemic so we kind of got off easy on that front.

Thanks for setting up, Verbs. Was busy this morning due to crap happening in life. I'll live but there's a guy who I will likely never know and never meet that I want to inflict serious bodily harm on. And I'm pretty mild mannered so me being that pissed off tells you how bad this is.

I have things to write but seem to be flailing for time. Things just keep coming up. I mean, we just got back from vacation and wife is already planning two more (one short one for our anniversary and one longer one for our next real vacay).

6352

Quote by verbal

Driving to Albuquerque for an eclipse in October.

Next big trip: sleeper car up the left coast to Vancouver. Cruise from there to Alaska.

Both sound fun. We saw the last eclipse at Bryce Canyon in Utah. Did not plan it that way, just worked out. And loved our Alaska cruise. We went from Seattle but there won't be much difference I imagine except you might go up the strait instead of around Vancouver Island like we did.

Damn - Dame

Probably take it easy nowadays but I did drive solo from Halifax, NS to Hamilton, ON once (3 days, roughly) so done the loon thing.

Work on the deck or work inside?

Birds, birds, everywhere birds. At least in my backyard. Where I am working today. Never dreamt my deck could double as an office. Thank you, COVID, I guess. There has to have been a better way for us to discover the value of working from home, though.

And one year ago, I was recovering from everyone's (not) favourite disease. Not fun but my case was milder than a lot of folks I know so I am thankful for that much.

Coffee is brewing, a Nicaraguan dark roast. Teas are Red Rose and Sunday Tea. Pitchers of iced tea and lemonade are washed and refilled.

Later, alligators.

Recent trailer:

Quote by gillianleeza
Jenna Ortega will be playing her daughter

Jenna seems to be becoming the go-to actor for young women in creepy stories. First Wednesday Addams and now this.

I am getting rather intrigued by Last Voyage of the Demeter. It is a Dracula movie but focusses on one part of the novel that sometimes does not even make it into other adaptations: The fate of the ship that transports Dracula and his supply of boxes (i.e. coffins) to England from Transylvania. Very creepy looking vampire and the scenario (monster stalking the crew on a storm-tossed ship) seems ripe for a locked room horror a la Alien or The Thing. And apparently the director's last movie, Trollhunter, is quite good, too.

Quote by verbal
Still working on the Grandpa’s growing tentacles stories.

Something to look forward to when Little M and his wife have kids?🤨😗😁

Find - Rind

So this week's post from Authors Publish is not a list of markets or calls for submissions, but a reading list suggesting memoirs to read. I am not really planning to write my memoirs (not much to write about, truth be told) but maybe some of you would benefit. And, really, reading a good memoir can be just a good read, too.

» 22 Memoirs that Every Aspiring Memoir Author Should Consider Reading (authorspublish.com)

Getting into a genre of music that you have largely ignored leads to interesting things, like listening to albums you largely passed over back in the day. Holy Diver by Dio came out when I was still in high school and I only vaguely knew of it until I got into metal. This morning, I had it on. Not necessarily going to be a favourite, but I can see why it is regarded as an important album in heavy metal. Here's a live performance. Lead singer, and founder, of the band was the late Ronnie James Dio, who fronted several bands over his career, including Dio, Black Sabbath and Rainbow.

Good morning!! How's things? Nice here for once. Not too hot or muggy. Only a slight chance of showers.

There's some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe in the coffee pot. Teas are English Breakfast and Russian Caravan. Iced and lemonade are refreshed.

Just reflecting on how much I have changed of late. I currently have the classic heavy metal album Holy Diver by the late Ronnie James Dio blasting through my speakers. I completely ignored this album when it came out in 1983. "Heavy metal, ewwww," was probably my reaction. Not necessarily going to be a favourite (classic metal is still not really my first choice compared to something like power or symphonic metal) but appreciate it far more than I once did.

Quote by verbal
You ate an octopus!? For breakfast!?

I have eaten octopus a few times, usually sushi. Prefer squid. Octos are a bit chewy. And, no, never for breakfast. Yet, anyhow. 😜

Quote by verbal

Great ideas. Dramatic and really visual, and now you have the details in your head.

I even have a pic from the trip picked out for a cover image 😊(actually a couple, but one is a mountain that appeared in Game of Thrones so I am leaning to the the other)

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Fens - Fins

Ape wanders in and takes an octopus to munch while he gets things going

Good morning, crew. Still wrestling with jet lag a bit but improving. Flaked out early last night so work up early this morning. I hope things get back to normal on the weekend.

I have put some Brazilian dark roast in the coffee maker. There's Assam and Red Rose in the teapots. If you need a cold beverage, as I suspect many do these days, there's freshly made unsweet iced tea and lemonade in the fridge.

Tinkering with the continuation of Spirits of Tan Maldrin right now. A journey to an icy wilderness where a demon is imprisoned in a volcano. Yeah, my trip influenced this one a lot.😉

So the world of the Tana stories is getting an Iceland analogue, I think. I plotted out a new story about the cast of Spirits of Tan Maldrin set in the frigid, volcanic north country of their world. A demon imprisoned in a volcano is involved. A journey through a lava field, a night or two living in a lava cave. It's wonderful how travel can inspire one's literary inclinations.

Our vacation included an eight day circuit of Iceland, but we didn't have to drive (guided tour in a Mercedes minibus). Forget the total length in km right now.

Just realized that Graham Yost is involved with Justified. Cool. His dad, Elwy Yost, was a journalist and film buff who hosted movie showings on TV Ontario, our provincial educational network back in the seventies and eighties. There was Saturday Night at the Movies, which usually ran a couple full-length films, and Magic Shadows, which serialized old movies. I first saw the wonderful British kaiju film Gorgo on one of his shows, along with some other classic s-f.

Bernard, especially his Dark Age and Medieval stuff, is more my taste

Ride a horse or hike/walk a trail?