COUNTDOWN: Patricia Cornwell's 24th Kay Scarpetta book, Chaos

TWO WEEKS IS TOO LONG!

2017 Zazzle Calendar!

Updating the Zazzle store with 2017 Wall Calendars.  I created and bought one last year and love it!  So, I decided to do it again for 2017 and share it with everyone.  Here’s a link straight to the calendar on Zazzle!  Check it out!

COMIC TOWEL 2017 CALENDAR

COMIC TOWEL 2017 CALENDAR

COMIC TOWEL 2017 CALENDAR

COMIC TOWEL 2017 CALENDAR

COMIC TOWEL 2017 CALENDAR

4 Horrors Movies That Almost F'ed Me Up as a Kid

I’m a little late on the Halloween season thing.  Given the latest circumstances on this blog, you can see why.  But before the calendar turns over and into November, I wanted to share at least four horror movies that messed me up as a child.  And a few of them I can more or less take as an adult (well I do have a hard time watching the unedited Candyman, anyway).  But that aside, my mom watched these movies.  Whether she rented them our bought them, I would watch them with her and turn around and asked to watch them on my own.  I have to give it to her taste, considering what we had to work with in our apartment in the late 80’s early 90’s.  And I kind of feel lucky I got to experience these types of movies, because that’s where my love of the horror genre originated.  Granted I was obsessed with Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kruger as well. 

But let’s get going on the list.  Most of you know the set-up and can look up whatever is missing.  Therefore, I’m just going to try to explain why any of the given movies almost messed me up.

Night of the Living Dead was a movie I would pop into the VHR on my own time.  It really was one of those films I wouldn’t just watch–but also study.  Each time I watched, there was always something new that I hadn't noticed any other time.

But anyway, I would watch this movie asking myself these things:

1.  Could this one day be possible?
2.  What would it take for me to survive?

And most of all…

3.  I refuse to stop watching this movie until I can make sense of how this is happening!

My Images Disappeared...? FIXED!

Been listening to a lot of Lady Gaga’s new album, Joanne, and watching a hell of a lot of Kitchen Nightmares lately.  And that’s exactly how I’ve managed to reconstructed all the blog posts.  No, every single one of them.  Post after post from my WordPress back up.  At least until anything beyond April 2016, when I lasted updated there.  Nonetheless, the crisis of lost images (though some I couldn't recover) is over with.  I've saved the blog.

Yet...

I had to re-take images from scratch from May 2016 up until now (lost and better resolution reasons).  Or at least before I last converted Blogger to the WordPress backup.  The good news is I found scribbles of those images in other online cloud folders (including on Canva).  So it wasn't all that hard to reconstruct each posts.  It also helps to have a good memory.

Anyway, it feels like I’ve been fighting to pull this together.  Yet, going through the past three years of post after post, made me truly appreciate the work it takes to upkeep a blog of any sort.  I mean, this recovery mission showed how much I've busted my ass these past 3 1/2 years.  Even in times where I felt like no one was hearing me, so I might as well give it all up.  But when you lose something special, and are forced to recover it, the situation really falls into perspective.  You begin to think of what life was like before, and what drove you to create.  You begin to think about what has changed since.  And, most of all, what opportunities your drive and commitment will eventually open up for you.  

So...

Elizabeth Chase: One Female Private-Eye You May Or May Not Have Heard Of

Let’s talk about another female private investigator you may or may not have heard of. 

In 1995 author Martha C. Lawrence introduced readers to her female private investigator, Dr. Elizabeth Chase.  And Chase is anything but your conventional fictional private-eye.  She has an interesting hook serving her layers of profession.  What could that hook be?  Well, she’s an astrologer.  Or psychic/parapsychologist to expand the point. 

So basically Elizabeth Chase can get all Susan Miller on a murder investigation.  She can break down that pesky Mercury Retrograde phenomenal to, perhaps, unfurl the brain of the forgetful suspect.  All done to gather a clue, of course.  She can probably map out the Age of Aquarius, to see which suspect is likely to get his or her hands dirty in the business of killing.  Hell, maybe the dates of eclipses can help her stop a pre-mediated attempt at murder.

Who knows?

I’m more than positive that within the five books in the series, something extraordinary and uniquely flavored is going to happen.  Without (I’m certain) the author cheating both the readers and her protagonist.  I mean let’s get real, a book with a psychic detective ain’t worth beans if all she has to do is close her eyes to tap into her “source” for the answers.

No, no.  I’m sure it won’t be like that. 

Anyway, I’m kind of excited and ready to get started with what Martha Lawrence and her sleuth, Elizabeth Chase, are going to get into.  I have a feeling both are going to take me (and hopefully you) along mystery avenues hardly spoken of and far from traditional.  So–after having never heard of this author–this was the number one reason why I grabbed the first book in Lawrence’s series, Murder in Scorpio, the second I spotted it.  It's always why I value the good ole used bookstore circuits.  There’s so much to discover if you look.

For more on the author, visit her website at www.marthalawrence.com.

Have you heard or read any of Martha Lawrence’s books?  Drop me a comment to whet my appetite on what I have to look out for in the future.

Beverly Hills Housewives vs. Hollywood Husbands

I’ve been reading Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Husbands for two weeks!  Since October 11th to be precise.  And, pitifully speaking, I’m only 330 pages into the 543 given.  And it’s not necessarily a slow read.  

You’d think being in the Did Not Finish (DNF) groove by now (after jumping the ship on Nora Roberts’ Stars of Fortune and Tayari Jones’ Leaving Atlanta) that I’d just let Husbands go.  I am tempted to stuff it into the wells of my bookshelf; out of sight, out of mind.  Yet, I don’t quite want to at the same time.  Maybe I'm enchanted with something about the book.  Because when I try to pick another read in its place, I’m drawn back to finish Husbands off.  I don’t want to cut Collins just yet–hoping this book would be as solid as the previous in the series, Hollywood Wives.  But man is it hard to keep engaged with this slog.

But first, let me do a quick summary…

The book’s primary characters consist of a trio of Hollywood buddies.  Jack Python is a talk show host.  He's married to a cheating actress, though his philandering ways are anything but subtle.  Anyway, Jack Python is slatted as the nobleman of the trio, given that he’s raising his Hollywood diva sister’s estranged child.  He's also the character designed to become the reasonable and pragmatic voice within the group.  Something that's evident by how he complains about being "over" the Hollywood scene.  Then there’s Howard Soloman.  He's a crackhead and movie studio owner with a line of divorces up to his bloodshot eyeballs.  Not one to swallow impulses, he has his eye on a friend’s ex-wife.  While, of course, presently married to an actress.  Without a doubt Howard is his own enemy, and struggles with the pressures of owning a movie studio that needs a good film to stay relevant.  Last there’s Mannon Cable.  He’s the irresistible heartthrob actor in the group.  He's also still hung up on his ex-wife (whom his friend, Howard, secretly covets), while his current wife tootles around pregnant with his child.  However, sadly, Mannon can’t stand the thought of either one.  He just wants a hot movie role and his ex-wife's jealousy over his new relationship.  You know, the one with the pregnant wife that he can't bother to show any love to.

Besides the men there are a host of women players as well.  Silver Anderson is Jack Python’s disunified sister.  Nonetheless, she's rich, famous, commandeering, and–despite her haughty attitude–probably the only likable character.  She does a lot of jacked-up things to her family, but she's a diva you're willing to throw out your moral code to entertain.  As of late, she’s eloped to marry a down-and-out broke-in-the-pockets wanted barman.  Naturally, his allure is that he's risky and thrilling.  He also has a penchant for knocking her “bottom” out just the way she likes.  Or at least enough to keep him around to the chagrin of her "loyal" staff.  Who, of course, are making plans to get him away from your highness to bring order back to the Hollywood castle. 

Let me see who else…

–Errr, well that’s really the only four that matters.  The remaining cast are more or less facilitators of each of principle's story thread.  So they're just sprinkled within to either kiss ass (in some cases literally), be insufferable to the principles, or push a scandal.  However, as far as the 330 pages I've gotten to, I haven’t a clue who’s pulling chains around here yet.  There's dirt to spread, but nobody's spreading it on each other; principle or secondary alike.  What I can say is a few of these secondary players (like the belittled housewife) operate as underdogs ready to bark back at their tormentors.  Which leaves one to continue reading and guessing how.  So the book is not a total slog.

Additionally, there’s an outsider's narrative in between all these story threads.  Taking readers back to a small town in 1974, it's a narrative featuring an abused teen turned arsonist heading for the Hollywood hills to “light” up one (or more) of the principle's life.

So why do I find the book so challenging to continue reading?  Especially when all this crazy, dramatic, and wild stuff is happening?  It's simple: every single character–with or without one–thinks only with their dicks!

(1) World of Final Fantasy Dungeon Demo (PS4 Live Stream)

I don't quite understand what's happening and what I'm doing, but I can say I'm more interested in this Final Fantasy release than Final Fantasy XV (coming out on 11/29/2016).  We'll see how the rest of this demo plays out.  But if there's any FF game I'm looking forward to, it has to be Zodiac (FF12 HD re-release!)