Joan groaned softly, massaging her temples one handed, thumb and forefinger. “Okay, okay, one more time, from the top. You tried fixing the mower yourself from some instructions in a book, and now it cuts unevenly and fills the bag too fast. Yes or no?” The target of their mounting frustration stood a few feet away, one hand on the… Read more →
Flash Fiction: The First Witch Bottle.
So, one of the classics of protection spells is to put a certain number of bent nails in a glass jar and place it somewhere, or bury it, ect. Its often called a Witch Jar. Some variants have pins and tacks, and sometimes calls for the urine of the person being protected. And I’ve seen it specified before in old… Read more →
The difference between an allergy and a sensitivity, or, how I learned to NOT love the pot brownie.
I have had exactly one experience with marijuana, and once was enough, sadly. A small touch of background. When I was 6, I had a cough so bad that they suspected pertussis. (whooping cough). The test for it was going to take several days to come back with results, so the doc gave my parents a prescription for a codeine… Read more →
Short Story : Holiday Prompt Swap : I wish to live
I recently took part in a holiday prompt swap organized by https://twitter.com/ARFrederiksen. My prompt and story are below! (Really looking forward to what was done with mine.) Prompt And what would you wish for? To live The world shifted around me, and I could feel my body changing. My gut grew wide and round, my thin goatee grew into a… Read more →
Workplace Wonderings : Coppers and Robbers, or, how I learned to love my commute
I used to do a LOT of commuting to work using the city bus. Sometimes at night, through areas of town that are… well, don’t go there at night alone. One thing about me that you should know. I am ALWAYS watching everything when I walk. I look up, I look to the sides, I do a quick owl impression… Read more →
Workplace wonderings : Stop giving them ideas
I have a long history of randomly musing out loud about things that are … illegal and or immoral, and other people overhearing and going, hey, THAT’S an idea! As I’ve explained often before, I could be a criminal mastermind. If it weren’t for executive dysfunction and a healthy fear of prison. Sometimes this is useful. When working at Chase,… Read more →
Workplace Wonderings : Best password ever? Or worst?
Passwords are… a thing. We all hate them. Personally, I like XKCD’s thought, make it 5 distinct words. Resetting passwords can be its own… fun. I worked for a company that had a windows application with a subscription service and where your password… had no requirements beyond 5 or more characters. Even better, that password? Was kept in a text… Read more →
Published Story : An Introduction to Emotional Scarcity in an Induced Multiperson Organism
This story originally published at http://madscientistjournal.org/2016/05/an-introduction-to-emotional-scarcity-in-an-induced-multiperson-organism/ only a partial version is available online with original publisher. Rights have reverted to author. Published here. Image rights were purchased directly from original artist for use by Alexander Hollins Recorded account by Dr. Melissa Mariposa, M.D., Ph.D., Psy.D. (deceased)Recovered and Transcribed posthumously from a standard Everitech Labs Neural Recorder by A. HollinsArt by Luke… Read more →
IA DAGON IA!
So, some of you may be visiting from a recent podcast, The Redacted Reports. (if you see this, and you aren’t familiar, https://the-redacted-reports.captivate.fm/ is an actual play of a Delta Green campaign, think, X files meets Call of Cthulhu. Go check it out) I wrote a song for them to use, based on a piece of Lovecraftian Lore. I’ve been… Read more →
The potential truth about Twilight
I’ve told the story here and there, and decided to write it up well to have in a central place. I will preface this by saying, this could all be an AMAZING coincidence. Could be. I doubt it is. But it COULD be. So… in 1999, I ran a Geocities (remember them?) website called The Leaking Pen. It was a… Read more →