Monthly Archives: September 2011

Query Letters

I hate writing them…

Here’s a taste fo the one I am currently working on.

Seth Jackson, American expatriate and Captain of the European starship Montgomery, holds humanity’s future in his hands. He can save the European Stellar Union from conquest, escape the destruction of his career, and repudiate the prejudiced idea that he is nothing but a glory-seeking Yank, but to do this he must kill Minou Shippen, the woman he loves.

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Sunday Night Movie: The Breakfast Club

I was not a teenager when this film came out in 1985, I was 24 but still this movie had a strong and visceral impact on me. However for whatever reasons this is a film I have no memory of ever watching on Videotape, Laserdisc or DVD. I recently ordered the blu-ray via Netflix and Sunday night I st down to see if the film still had that old impact or had I changed too much.

Nope, this film is still a well written, directed, and acted movie that goes far deeper than many movies do in exploring human nature and human character. It’s kind of My Dinner With Andre but with a much greater relevance for teenagers.

At the start of the film you have five stereotypes for teenagers, the princess, the jock, the brain, the criminal, and the oddball. By the end of the movie John Hughes has deconstructed these characters into characters pulling off the impressive writing feating of not only making them into human beings, but sympathetic human beings.

The blu-ray had tons of good bonus material and I shall have to consider adding it to my library.

See this movie if you have not.

 

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a trip down memory lane

So on Sunday Night I decided to go to the drive-in. A friend of mine also came along as I was seeing a double feature of Contagion and Apollo 18. (I expected Contagion to be good and Apollo 18 to suck.) After a minor navigational error where we learned that the turn-by-turn software knew my friend’s area better then he did, we made it to the Santee Drive-in about fifteen minutes before show time.

There were plenty of spots to choose from and we ended up pretty much front row center. A quick trip to the restroom and concession stand and we were ready for the show.

I did not expect top flight visual as this was a drive in with a long throw on the projector. There were lines running vertically through the image, almost like a video display had been enlarged. Still I was seeing two feature films, first runs films, for 8$, ($12 after gas) so really there was little to complain about. The sound was transmitted via FM radio and sounded just fine on the car’s stereo.

Contagion was a damn good movie, a very realistic and scientifically  accurate portrayal of a sudden and deadly global flu outbreak.

Apollo 18 sucked rocks as I expected and —–spoiler alert —–

—ends badly when the Command Module Pilot apparently forgot how to pilot the command module. Avoid this film, even on video.

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disgusted

So you want me to believe that the conservative resistance to the HPV vaccine is purely about ‘Parental Rights’, or concerns that our children are being over immunized? How naïve do you think I am? (I’m not even touching Michelle ‘Madman’ Bachmann’s Jenny McCarthy’s like idiocy.)

 

Let’s take a quick look at recommended immunizations for children according to CDC.

 

Chicken Pox –Air and direct contact vectors

Diphtheria – Air and direct contact

Hib – Air and direct contact

HepA – Personal contact, Food, Water

Hep B – Blood, bodily fluids

Measles – Air and Direct Contact

Mumps – Air and direct contact

Pertussis  – air and direct contact

Polio – via the mouth

Pneumococcus – air and direct contact

Rotavirus – through the mouth

Rubella – air and direct contact

Tetanus – breaks in the skin

HPV – sexual activity

 

 

Only ONE of these immunizations has the conservatives in a lather, but I’m supposed to accept the premise that it’s NOT about the sex, but only a logical question of parental rights that somehow doesn’t get raised for any of the other immunizations? Yeah, right, and I’ve got some Unicorns to sell you.

 

If this was a fringe group grousing about the injections, sort like the fluoridation nuts of years past, I could ignore the whole issue, but these people are in the driver’s seat for the selection process for the presidential nominee. Leading politicians are bending knees and groveling to these idiots who believe it is better to risk cancer than sexual activity.

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Things seem to be looking pretty good.

I have finished a new short story, the first in months. I have another edited and ready to send off to a market for it’s customary rejection. I’ve had two good conventions in rather short order and I have two more coming up the as many months, so I really have little to complain about. So I won’t.

This Sunday night I plan to go out to the drive-in theaters and relive that bit of childhood memory. (not teenager memory never had a car as a teenager and only went to the drive-in once as a teenager. By myself, on a bicycle, to see 1979’s Dawn Of The Dead.) This sunday will be a double feature of CONTAGION and APOLLO 18 for $8, hell you can’t beat that.

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