A HALLOWEEN STORY

A story from my childhood: When I was 6 or 7 and living in the Phillipines, we occasionally went to Bagiuo to spend vacations or holidays in the mountains at the Mobil Oil house that executives and their families could use. It had room for 2 families to stay at the same time. We were up there for Halloween with another family, and we had a Halloween party for which my Mom handmade both my & my sister's(the evil one) costumes. My outfit was a gorgeous clown outfit with the polka dots and all. Well, we were outside fiddling around and all of a sudden a ghost jumped out at me and off I went. Came around the side of the house and slipped in the mud, ruining my outfit!! Boy, was my Dad (the ghost) in trouble with my Mom for that one!!

OUTBACK IN WILTON CT

Interesting, stumbled upon the fact there is an Outback Steakhouse in Wilton,CT. I lived there from 1961 to 1970, almost graduated high school there before moving to England. Now, when I lived there, Wilton was a dry town, no alcohol sold there at all, even @ restaurants. In fact, Elmer's Town Line Liquor made a killing, being just over the line from Wilton, in Norwalk. But now I see there's an Outback listed as being in Wilton, though from the Yahoo(tm) map, it looks pretty close to the town line, so where is it really?? Hmmmmm......

LAST 6 BOOKS READ

1)Treasure Of Tau Ceti by John Rackham; Old time sf from a 1969 Ace double edition, a fun read
2)The Nature Of Balance by Tim Lebbon; Waste of time, pointless 'mother nature striking back' story, and not even sure of that actually.
3)Final War & Other Fantasies by K.M.O'Donnell; Other side of the Ace double edition, but not really a good fit, and the stories were more philosophical than necessary.
4)Moon:The Life & Death Of A Rock Legend by Tony Fletcher; Extensively researched bio of the man known as Moon the loon. A fascinating book from start to finish, learn the truth(?) about some of the legends that grew up around K.M.
5)Baudolino by Umbert Eco; grade = F. Considering what a great book 'Name Of the Rose' was, both this and his other one (can't remember the title) were disappointing. This one in particular was a horrible read, seemed to be written by someone form the 18th century like one of those 'classics' you had to read in high school english, you know, the long boring ones.
6)The Cry Of the Halidon by Robert Ludlum; You know you can't go wrong with a Ludlum, and this one's no exception. This one centers around a survey of inland Jamaica, and the struggle for power that is the reason behind it. A great read!!

Well, there you go, a larger share of disappointing books this time around, but that's how things go sometimes.

DOOBIE BROTHERS; 10/15/05

What a show,what a show! Saw them in downtown Orlando Saturday night - free (thanx WMMO) and they still rock after all these years. Actually saw them about 30 years ago, and the show was just as good. Still have 4 old time members; Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, Michael Hossack, & John Mcfee (who started in the band as Tom's replacement when he left the band way back in the days of Michael'the man who killed the doobie bros.'McDonald. So they played all the songs you know and love, and only 1 song from the MM era. And they even had a surprise guest for 1 song; Auburndale's own Les Dudek! So that was pretty neat too, he's let his hair grow back out (as has Pat Simmons). All in all, an enjoyable show, of course, everyone had to stand up, which is ALWAYS annoying, but the crown wasn't rowdy, so that was a plus. Glad we finally got to see them again...

6 BOOKS/SERIES I WANT TO RE-READ BEFORE I DIE

1) 'The Hobbitt' & LOTR trilogy by JRR Tolkien
2) 'The Stand' by Stephen King
3) 'The Gunslinger' series by Stephen King (though I haven't finished reading it for the first time yet!)
4) 'Swan Song' by Robert McCammon
5) 'Bright Eyes' by Dean Koontz
6) The 'Gormenghast' trilogy by Mervyn Peake

Have you read any of these? What's your opinion; do you think they're worth re-reading?

GREAT PHRASES YOU NEVER HEAR ANYMORE

1) Well...isn't that a fine kettle of fish.
2) Well...wouldn't that frost your grandmother's preserves.

Always good for a laugh if you say them to people under 45! And then they'll repeat
them any chance they get. Gotta love it!

JASON...THE ACTUAL 1st ONE

This weekend went to Cypress Gardens Adventure Park - have passes, so go often. Special Halloween season guest was Ari Lehman, the original Jason from the 1st 'Friday the 13TH movie. No, he never wore a hockey mask, not in that one. He was the boy who came jumping out of the lake at the end of the movie, after his mother (the real murderer) was beheaded. Really nice guy, very chatty and friendly (which was why the line moved so slow). Waited 2 hours to see him, but it was really worth it since he was so friendly, not just moving people along as quickly as possible. I hear he stayed about 2 hours past his finish time just so everyone could get their autograph. Anyway, he's got a band called Firstjason, you can hear a couple of their kickass songs at http://firstjason.com . And if you ever get a chance to see him, do it, you'll enjoy it.

QUOTE FROM MAC 'DR JOHN' REBENNACK

Quote in Rolling Stone 984 from interview with Dr John about New Orleans: "New Orleans is a desperately poor town. I've told people for years: Poverty in New Orleans is more akin to Haiti than it is to any other place in the U.S."
Now that's a scary thought - the richest country in the world being on a level with what is arguably the absolute poorest!!

STORIES OF MY DAD...

Couple more short bits of my Dad's younger days. When he was in the RCAF in Africa working at the radar station, the men used to climb the radar tower to pee from; a contest to see who could pee the farthest. Or so the story goes!
Also, when the cook used to bake bread the dough would be filled with flies, and the bread would bake like that. Rather than picking out the flies and losing a good portion of the bread, they used to pretend that it was raisin bread. After all, the bread was baked & any fly germs would have been destroyed by the heat. Or so the story goes!

LAST 6 BOOKS READ...

1)Killobyte by Piers Anthony: Virtual Reality & Video Games; something a bit different than his usual fantasy-based novels. Definitely interesting, worth a read.

2)State Of Fear by Michael Crichton: Eco-terrorists & Global Warming; a very interesting, factual-based background to this one. A good lesson here - don't believe everything you hear about global warming. The state of fear? What governments keep us in so as to be able to keep us in line. If it's not one thing (the commies) it's another (global warming).

3)Nebula Winners Twelve ed.by Gordon R Dickson; 1976 SF award winners, including the classic "Bicentennial Man" (nothing like the crappy movie - read the original).

4)Sole Survivor by Dean Koontz; sole survivor & sole reviver. Interesting, but not one of his best.

5)Livingston And Africa by Jack Simmons; "Dr Livingstone, I presume, coming out of the jungle gloom into the mid-day sun; what did you find there, did you stop a while a stare- did you see anyone?" (w/thanks to the Moody Blues). Relatively short but interesting bio of the famous Dr L
and his journeys through Africa.

6)A Salty Piece Of Land by Jimmy Buffett; man, he just keeps getting better, this one travels all over; Key West, Mexico, South Pacific, etc. Lighthouses, fishing, bounty hunters and a 100+ year old woman all figure in this one.