It was a Popcorn and Coke party during 2nd-5th grade. If the class reached a certain goal within a test score, or behaved well for a lengthy sub, you were rewarded with popped starch and sugar water. By elementary school the treats came with a movie to watch as well. Such greats as the Sandlot, Babe, and the latest Disney movie were wheeled out on a 6ft tall TV cart with not but some manner of seatbelt holding that massive CRT down.
Then came the real prize days. Middle school brought on the notion of the Pizza Party. Whichever grade brought in the most canned goods, read the most books, or won any sort of class vs class contest the grand prize was a Pizza Party. Oh yes. The only place in town to get that was Pizza Hut, and it was (and still is) one of the best ones to go to. They have the red roof hat shaped building and interior dining. Never had a bad pizza from there.
Anyway. Pizza Parties. Children would do anything for the chance to eat real live pizza during lunch or at the end of the school day. As an adult the allure of getting pizza has diminished since I can order it anytime and the places here aren't anything to write home about. We get it every other week. But I think back at the kids in school and realize that they probably rarely got pizza, making it even more of a big deal to be in the class or group that won.
Cokes aren't allowed in schools now. My kids never ask for snack money or quarters for the coke machine because they don't have them. We had a lady wheel around a cart filled with candy at recess that we could buy for 10-50 cents every day. We had a Lance vending machine with cheese crackers and chips at lunch. Coke machines sold every flavor of Shasta for 50 cents a can.
1995 was a wild time.
(We don't call them sodas or pop, they are all cokes and you have to specify the flavor/brand afterwards.)
After that last post I got to wondering if any of the folks in our neighborhood are going to attempt some sort of socially distant trick or treating for the kids. It's outside, sure, but kids always run around in clusters and pile up at doorsteps. I could sit in the back of the truck and lob little bags of treats at any kids who are out and about. However, I think for the sake of things I'll just mail some goodie bags to all our friends who have kids. I don't plan on telling any of them this tho, and I don't think any of them read this blog so I should be in the clear as to the surprise.
Going to shop around for some stuff before it becomes a huge issue to get anything. Candy is easy enough to find. Maybe put in a copy of a movie and some microwave popcorn.
TMO mentioned something on one of his blogs about writing spooky stories on Halloween night over at Midnight.pub. I figured that sounded like a pretty good writing exercise since I've never written proper horror before.
Now, due to time crunch and the kids I might be writing it before that night and simply posting it around then. I'll post the story here and over at Midnight too, for fun. I did give myself some restrictions for it, should anyone else care to join in:
2k words max
Must be scarier than 2020
Must be original
I know that last one seems obvious but by that I mean no taking an old story and retelling it in a modern way, or doing a “what if?” story. “What if Frankenstein came out perfect?” “What if the bears ate Goldilocks the end?” That kind of thing.
Writing with restrictions helps me narrow things down when no prompt is set.
Drove five hours to get home, the Jeep has bad suspension so it couldn't go over 65. (Our roads go up to 75-80.) It's going to the shop later this month for a whole new suspension, brakes, fluid changes and a shot of antifreeze.
I need to find a place that can do fried catfish and hush puppies that doesn't totally suck. There are two in town that do catfish. One of them had the absolute gall to bread it like cod. You bread catfish in cornmeal and cornmeal only. The other place had grainy fish and served no hush puppies with it. Who's running these places?!
Catfish. Hushpuppies. Crinkle cut fries. Slaw.
Not rocket science, Central Texas.... Yall can do bbq but not fish apparently.
Decided for once not to bring all my writing stuff with me this time. I never actually have time to do anything useful when here and at this point with dad it's more important to spend time with him.
The reason for the trip was to come pick up his Jeep. It's older but it's better than having a new car payment after selling our Focus.
We plan to fix it up and get it range ready.
This is also my first mobile post, and it only makes me feel better about using writeas because markdown and mobile are a perfect interface, no stupid apps to install.
There is a Florence + The Machine song that didn't make the cut for Lungs.
A ghost of a song, it now only exists as a partial clip of audio that sounds like it was saved to the voicemail on a flip phone. (You have to remember this was 2008 or so.)
Seeing as the song was never actually finished, it wouldn't be possible for her or the new band members to even attempt it without possibly starting over.
It is the Holy Grail of Florence songs. With every new album or single or special edition that comes out the first comment in the community is speculation as to whether or not Paper Massacre will appear.
It wont.
You see, listening to it you can hear similarities of a later song appearing in 2012's Ceremonials. The drum beats, the clapping, (lot's of their songs have clapping.) the echos, are all there in Strangeness and Charm.
Shopping around for keyboard parts is a dangerous thing. There is a layout for everyone. A skill level for everyone. Keycaps for any style. Those are all expensive fancy things. You don't neeeeed the keys to be fancy colors or have an aluminum block housing. Lights might be needed if you are an older person who was never taught touch typing, but there is one little thing that really is important to your keyboard... the switch.
That little bit of mechanical actuation that closes the circuit when your brain says “Press the letter A.” (Even if it's a mushy plastic square that Apple keeps insisting is a key.) The switch is what connects you physically to the letters that pop up on your screen. It completes the metal on metal circuit, signaling to a chip that you wish to have the letter A show up on the console, in a word processor, on an email.
Those little guys come in different flavors, colors, shapes, and sounds. Yes, sound is important in typing, just like hearing the crunch when you eat chips that tells you they're fresh. Hearing the THOK TICK or THUNK of your keys as you type tells you you've made contact with those circuits, that you're being productive.
....and sometimes they are $2-4 dollars a pop and you just keep adding them to your cart and closing the browser window because you already have three sets and you don't need these just because they are lime green.
Got a rejection from a journal this afternoon that I submitted to back in March. Normally I would have pulled it or submitted it to another place by now but it really didn't fit in anywhere else. I posted it to my main website if you want to read the little bit of short fiction about sour cream.
I have been too busy with my day job work to do any other polished fiction that could be sent to journals. Maybe here soon I can pick it up again but I'd rather work on Redbriar 2 once I get the chance.
I attempted to change the switches on my Ultimate Hacking Keyboard last week. One half worked. The other half had everything working but three switches. The N, M, and H keys. I attempted to jump the traces on the PCB to get it to register but it's not looking good.
In the mean time I spent my birthday money from my parents on a GK64 board. I threw in some spare cherry clears and cheap caps. Let me tell you, cherry clears are worse than cherry browns. Muffled, muddy, and mush. That's how they feel.
My holy pandas are currently soldered into the UHK sides. It will take about two hours (at least) to de-solder them and add them to this GK64. So, I'm just gonna keep the pandas in the UHK until I can be sure I can't jump the traces on my own. Ordered some Halo Trues on Drop at a discount since my pandas took so long last time. Twenty five bucks shipped. Will see how they do.