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Writing prompt: New stories of the gods
Thinking about all the gods, deities, and cultural icons that people have created over the millennia, the stories we’ve been told are very dramatic and memorable, but what was left out? What haven’t we been told? What are the banalities of their lives that the bards and chroniclers failed to mention? The writing prompt for…
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Writing prompt: 200 years from now
Since work and grad school will probably keep me busy this November, it’s unlikely I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo this year, but that doesn’t mean the ideas stop. I’ll try posting a few writing prompts over the next few weeks if anyone wants to use them. On the walk into work this morning, listening to The…
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Halloween names in Second Life
In honor of the spooky season, Second Life just announced a new set of last names that premium members can choose from. They are: Addams Bitey Boo Demonpaws Macabre Vorhees A few times a year, Second Life offers a new set of last names that are available for a limited time, and they usually have…
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The Peripheral
Author William Gibson is probably best known for his early novels, which not only spawned the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, they heavily influenced The Matrix series of films, as well as countless other cultural works. After writing in other genres for awhile, The Peripheral sees Gibson once again plumbing the depths of cyberpunk, although…
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Ready Player One
When the book Ready Player One first came out in 2011, I remember reading lots of favorable reviews for the book. Much was made about how the book seemed to reference every bit of 1980s pop culture and how they were cleverly added into the story. I skipped the book because my to-be-read pile was…
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Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club
Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club is another Audible Original, but this time it is based on a play. From what I gather, it played at the 2020 Williamstown Theatre Festival (charmingly known as WTF). Since 2020 was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the play was created virtually, though I don’t know all…
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Convolution
I’m not sure how long they’ve been doing this, but Audible also produces some of its own content in addition to selling the content produced by others. Convolution is an an “Audible Original” audio drama and as far as I can tell, it’s not based on an actual book. That’s a shame because the story…
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Rumpole: The Age of Mysteries & other stories
A few years ago, one of my aunts sent my mother a few omnibus volumes of Rumpole stories, who later gave them to me. Each of the omnibus volumes contains multiple short stories from the fictional memoirs of Horace Rumpole, the renowned barrister sometimes referred to as “Rumpole of the Bailey”. Although the stories are…
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Empire of Blue Water
One of the channels I follow on YouTube is The History Guy, and his videos highlight lesser known historic events he feels should be remembered. Sometimes the videos will reference pirates, and he’ll ask, “Because, don’t all good stories involve pirates?” It’s a bit of a catchphrase. After I bought the audiobook for Lindsey Stirling’s…
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The End is Near!
A recent email from a former classmate reminded me I should update my academic portfolio. It also made me want to figure out how many classes I’ve taken, how many more I need to take, and when I might graduate. A quick perusal of the unofficial transcript enabled me to update my academic portfolio. In…
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Cynical Theories
It’s been awhile but I decided to get back into doing reviews. Despite not writing any reviews for them, I’ve listened to quite a bit over the past several months, including the audiobook reviewed here. The plan is to write some more reviews and have them come out about once a week for the next…
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Studying
Last week was the second week of classes and the first real week of the semester. Both classes I’m taking are online and asynchronous, so the first week was mainly about introducing ourselves, while the second week was when the real work of the classes began. When I was in grade school, I hated doing…
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