The Obligatory Halloween Blog

The Obligatory Halloween Blog

Halloween is probably the funnest holiday ever invented. Not only is it during the best time of the year, Autumn, but it is mandatory to be someone else. The holiday is a license to pretend and what could be more fun?

Since the earliest days of my memories, pretending was part of my life. Before my sister came along when I was four, I had pretend play-friends. I remember playing with them in the sandbox, pushing the hardened cat turds around with my yellow Tonka bulldozer, pretending the entire sandbox was a construction site.

(I always wanted the write the word turd.)

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A Cheesedog Like No Other

A Cheesedog Like No Other

About twenty years ago, I went to an old soda shop style restaurant in downtown Burlington named Zack's. Their main fare was hot dogs and Cokes in ten ounce glass bottles. And everything was always served with a smile and a thanks.

Zack's hot dogs has been a staple of North Carolina's piedmont since 1928, when they first served their signature hot dogs to a very happy customer. Fifty-five years later, I discovered them, and even today, they are still serving traditional American food to patrons of all ages. Any time a restaurant is open for 75 years, owned by the same family the entire time, they are doing something right.

I'll never forget the first time I ordered from them. I didn't want just a plain hot dog, I wanted something special. Something unique. So I chose the cheesedog.

Visions of a hot dog covered in melted cheese danced in my head, lighting up my imagination. What kind of cheese would it be? Cheddar? American? Something exotic like pepperjack? Maybe that melty cheese that seeps into the hot dog bun like it thought it was chili. Or maybe it was a hot dog stuffed with cheese!

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Fat Boy Asthma

Fat Boy Asthma

Growing up, I had what I affectionately called "Fat Boy Asthma." Whenever I would play sports, I had trouble breathing. It never experienced an attack for no reason like most asthma sufferers, it only happened when I exerted myself. In fact, that's what the doctor's called it, over-exertion asthma.

I still called it Fat Boy Asthma.

I was chubby during those years before puberty. Of course, now, after puberty we all call it something different. Big-boned. Because our bones have grown, right? Actually, my bones aren't bigger than other people's, just the cushioning on them is.

The descriptor "chubby" was killed sometime during the Political Correctness Movement of the 80s and 90s. The blander, more vanilla terms of "overweight" and "weight-challenged" took its place. "Obese" even came into play but that was reserved for your overly chubby people. We just called them "fat" back then.

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CD Baby Rocks

CD Baby Rocks

I bought some music online the other day from an outfit named "CD Baby." They specialize in selling independent music of all genres and all of it is DRM-free. It is so much better than buying music at one of those mega-sites because these artists are true artists. They aren't that Top 40 crap that the music industry tries to force down our throats. This is real music.

Indie groups are basically groups that haven't been signed to one of the four major record labels (Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, and Warner Music). These labels account for 70% of music sales worldwide and 85% of music sales in the US. And most of the money from their sales go to their employees and marketing machine. The actual music group only receives between 7% and 13% of the income their product generated.

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The Purpose of Fingernails

The Purpose of Fingernails

The lungs provide our bodies with life-giving oxygen. The heart pumps our blood, the kidneys filter our system, the eyes provide visual representations of the world around us. We've even discovered that the appendix has a purpose, to store excess bacteria. But what are the fingernails for?

Your first thought is that they do serve a purpose, to protect the ends of our fingers. But you're wrong. Remember the last time you smacked your finger or thumb with a hammer? Do you honestly think it could have hurt any worse than it did? So ask yourself, did you fingernail really provide any true protection?

I have some other theories. I believe God did provide us with fingernails for a reason. In fact, I think there are many reasons.

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Church For Sale

Church For Sale

On my away home yesterday, a small sign caught my eye. "Church For Sale." It was in front of a little brick church with browning grass and sparse landscaping. It made me wonder, how does someone go about selling a church?

Is this something a real estate agent is qualified to do? What if the church is Baptist but the agent is Methodist? Or a Mormon? Or even Jewish? Are there rules about this stuff?

What if a Catholic priest wants to buy it? Can the church convert? What if an atheist wants to buy the church just to shut it down? Would the pastor sell it if the price was right? Can a Baptist church be converted to a synagogue and still be kosher?

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(Special Audio Prize Inside)

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The Great Cereal Blog

The Great Cereal Blog

As a child during the 70s, when sugar was cheap and inflation a virtual myth, we were privy to a selection of breakfast cereals that, like 60s rock music, can only be crudely imitated these days. From Lucky Charms to Golden Grahams to the Zeus of all cereals, Peanut Butter Crunch, us Disco kids had it made. And we didn't know how good we had it.

All the cereals mentioned above still exist to this day, along with other favorites like Frosted Flakes, Fruit Loops, Count Chocula, Apple Jacks, Cookie Crisp and Fruity Pebbles. But you have to admit, they just don't taste the same. The recipes have changed and the sugar has been screwed with. Like colas switching from good old sucrose to high fructose corn syrup, changes were made to cut costs and save money.

Even the mascots changed. Tony the Tiger went from a tiger to a bland unisex cartoon. Toucan Sam toned down his image and his colors. Count Chocula went gay. I don't even want to mention Lucky's Leprechaun and his overly rosy cheeks. Remember the elephant from Peanut Butter Crunch? His name was Smedley and he's no longer on the box. Probably some politically correct crap PETA pissed about. And lo and behold, the venerable Cap'n Horatio Crunch also fell victim to the mass media homogenization.

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My First Album

My First Album

I was born in 1971 and I was given my first album in the late seventies. And it was an actual album, not an 8-track or a tape cassette (CDs didn't even exist in science fiction back then). If you knew me now, you'd never guess what my first album was.

I'm a major music fan and my influences lean toward the British Invasion of the sixties and the American Answer during the same decade. On one side, you have The Beatles, The Zombies, The Kinks, The Who, The Rolling Stones, etc. On the flip side, there was The Beach Boys, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Rascals, The Turtles, Tommy James & The Shondells, The Four Seasons, Three Dog Night, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc. And let's not forget the Motown sound with Diana Ross & The Supremes, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Little Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Dixie Cups, etc.

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PUBLISHED - The Other Twin

PUBLISHED - The Other Twin

Hackwriters.com published another of my stories, a creative non-fiction piece based on a true story.

You may go HERE to read it.

PUBLISHED - Fat Chance

I am now a published author. Well, semi-published. Somebody else thought enough to put my words on their site, so I guess that makes me published.

Visit hackwriters.com to see my flash fiction story - Fat Chance.

At the time of this writing it is on the front page.

Hackwriters is part of the new MA in Creative Writing at Portsmouth University.

They've received numerous accolades:

Guardian Media Award Winner 1999 (As Bloc)
Guardian Nominated again in 2000
Skylines Travel Writers of the Year 2001
New Statesman Community Website Nominee 2004
Nominated for New Statesman Education Website 2006

Please enjoy the site and send any comments my way.

-Ross

The Deal Breaker (Part 2)

The Deal Breaker (Part 2)

NOTE: Please read Part 1 first.

The little deal that was too good to be true, really was. Last week, the woman who offered that deal, was arrested at her apartment and hauled away by police.

Not only had Tiffany conned the old man out of the deeds to his two homes, but she'd parted $34,000 from him in a bond agent scam. How did it work?

She met his granddaughter in jail, told her she was a bail bondsman that could get her out, and secured her family's info. Then Tiffany approached the grandfather, had him sign over the two deeds and pay $34,000 in a ruse to get the granddaughter out on bond. The bond was $15,000 and a bond agent can only legally charge up to 15%, a total of $2250.

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