A Dark and Stormy 2020
Okay, so 2020 is a pretty dark and stormy year, but this post is actually about the 2020 Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. Last year I won in the Fantasy and Horror category. This year I didn’t do quite as well, but …
Steampunk Arcade Cabinet Part 1 – Control Unit
A while ago (longer than I’m willing to admit) We decided to build a steampunk-themed MAME cabinet to play old video games (of Space Invaders/Donkey Kong vintage). We started out by purchasing a busted Arkanoid cabinet (in a snowstorm with …
Counting words in a string in C#
It’s been a while since I’ve done a programming post, but something came up the other day that I thought might be useful. In one of my current projects, I needed to determine the number of words in a string. …
Alternative Formats
Recently I posted about a couple of my short stories that just came out, including Waiting to Sleep in Literary Hatchet #24, and R.I.P. in Ink Stains Anthology #13. At the time, Waiting to Sleep was only available in print …
Waiting to Sleep
My short story Waiting to Sleep just came out in the magazine Literary Hatchet #24. At the moment, only the (free) e-book version is available (although you have to register to download it), but the print version should be out …
R.I.P.
My story R.I.P. just got published in the Ink Stains Anthology #13! Since Anna is such a big zombie fan, I figured I should try writing a zombie story, which turned into R.I.P. It is not exactly a classic zombie …
A Darker and Stormier Night
About a year ago, I posted about the 2018 Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, in which one of my entries was a runner-up in the Crime/Detective category. Well, this year I did better (or worse?) – I won in the Fantasy & …
Custom plumbing
A month or so ago, I noticed a pool of water in our basement, by the floor drain. Given that all of our things, particularly in basements, appear to be hydrophilic, this made me sad, but less so than the …
Frog
We have a frog in our pond! I can only assume spontaneous generation. He (or she) doesn’t seem to bother the fish (we have 3 goldfish and 3 Koi, which I’m told are different things). …
Beef Jerky
I can’t tell if this is the worst or best marketing I’ve ever seen. I’d say it was tasteless, but honestly I didn’t try it.