The HP Lovecraft Historical Society has an amazing and extensive collection of Lovecraft-inspired fonts for use in your Cthulhoid cosplay, larp and role-playing adventures. HPLHS Prop Fonts.

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Speaking of Cthulhu, one can see the influence of HP Lovecraft in the most recent Stephen King project called “N”. Its on iTunes and it is rather good one has to say.

Music Reviews: Journey, Kansas, Oxygene8, Sugar’s Cane, Three Miles Out, Your Highness Electric, Straight Line Stich, War Tapes, Zebra and Ted Nugent

Pomp, prog, a little modern rock with a reggae kicker. What else you want?

And Andrew has reviewed Gareth Hind’s Merchant of Venice and Atlantis was America.

Finnish Metal, Motley Crue, Farmakon, and Man in the Moon

Some Finnish metal of all ilks and a return to form for Motley Crue.

Judas Priest, Stone Gods, Pharaoh, Mar de Grises, Daylight Dies & Dearestazazel

Synth-pop to symphonic death metal; its got to be another of Marty’s review columns.

Music Reviews: Paganini, Charing Cross, Battleroar, Retribution, Dantesco, Montgomery Gentry, and Ted Nugent

Billy Ray Cyrus, Ted Nugent and some Battleroar in the same column? Well, of course, what’s wrong with that?

I have a piece over at PJM on that other revival from the 70s strikes. Yet another group of people who seem to be bound and determined to send the UK economy into recession.

Reviews: Whitesnake & Def Leppard Live, Deivos, Atrocity, and Violent Force

Whitesnake & Def Lep delight while some of the latest batch of releases don’t quite.

Man Raze, Bret Michaels, Believer, Thy Disease, Midnight Syndicate and Eddy Grant…

Death metal, hard rock, and a bit of reggae…just a typical Marty’s Musical Meltdown then.

Some Man Raze and a bit of Bret Michaels; care to guess which is the better of the two? I am bummed that I have to move on in my reviewing listens. Yes, one of these two is that good.

Waves of Emigrants Leaving Britain Yet again the UK is exporting one of its most precious commodities…its people.

Book Review: The Best Book on the Market: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Economy by Eamonn Butler

Just in time for the possible recession: a reminder of why markets work so well.

And he managed a game review while he was at it.

PC Game Review: Larva Mortus

Top-down, high energy, supernatural simple RPG action with a decent plot.

Music Review: Def Leppard, Night Ranger, Rush, Soul Doctor, Top Gun Cowboy, and Munk

Good stuff from Rush, Night Ranger and Def Leppard.

I have reviewed the Oban anime series for BNN.

This time over at BNN: a review of the documentary trilogy: Outside the Wire.

Book Review: Let’s Connect: Using LinkedIn To Get Ahead At Work by Ajay Jain

All you ever wanted to know about the best methods for using the professional network site LinkedIn.

As you probably know I have had a rather rough patch health wise and have a few expenses to go with my hospital stay. If you would like to help this ole’ rogue out please do so buy one of my writing endeavors. (Music fans will have a chance to buy our latest CV later this spring.)

Oh yeah I discovered a few other published pieces as well. I had no idea they were on Amazon. A pleasant surprise; almost as good as the email I got from Amazon telling me that I could pre-order my latest book.

Marty’s Musical Meltdown: The Cavaliers, American Speedway, Farewell, Floodgate, and Pestilence

Another round up of hard rock and metal.

Oh and I have a good bash at a book about booze addiction. It blames society and everyone else but the pisshead.

You may wish to include this version, with excerpt:
Software Review: Crossover Mac
Finally an easy solution to running PC programs on the Mac.

I have reviewed the new Turok movie over at BNN.

Marty’s Musical Meltdown: The Great Kat, Crown of Glory, Cyclone, Napalm Death & Viron

An interesting collection of material to review this time around from re-issues to one crazy lady.

I have reviewed David Botsford’s latest book as well as a wonderful novel set in Venice.

Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Blackfield, Delain, Eyes of Eden, Indigo Dying, Sandalinas, and Bassinvaders

Another mad set of metal and hard rock reviews.

Free Mark Steyn is a new site dedicated to the ongoing spat between ROPMA in Canada and Mark Steyn. Shockingly Islam in Canada wants to limit someone’s right to free expression and squelch any criticism. I found this via Dean.

Well, last month, to be exact:

“Yes, we work out all our enmities and neuroses on the printed page, so we can afford to be nice to each other,” Ruth tells me. “It’s exactly the opposite at the Romantic Writers’ convention. They’re all a lot of backstabbing bitches.”

the blog québécois

One thing that has always bothered me is the fact that many grads schools accept students from abroad that have a limited or lacking grasp of English. I have been known to pick up a few schkels here and there writing/editing the odd term paper for such a student. Anyway there is a service online that provides custom writing for those of you who feel your expository skills aren’t up to the task. It is not a term paper plagarism site, but one that helps people with editing, proofreading and tweaking of papers. They guarantee 12 hour delivery and have 24 hour support. I think this sort of service is quite good and perfectly acceptable for those who need a bit of help getting their ideas across. Another good use for the internet methinks.

Now lets just say you are a writer who doesn’t know any writers well. A not too uncommon occurance I can assure you. Well wouldn’t it be nice to know of a writers circle online that you can access from the privacy of yer own home? There is a pretty good one that has been around for two years now called appropriately enough http://www.MyWritersCircle.com. Its a one stop site for both the budding and experienced writer. If you are a writer or have an incling to be one why not head over and take a look?

Book Reviews: Madsen Pirie’s Dark Visitor and Children of the Night

The Adam Smith Institute head honcho and think tank guru Madsen Pirie is trying his hand at science fiction.

was excellent despite Tropical Storm Barry forming off the coast.

Those of you who care to see our wedding blog can find it here. Expect continuing posting of the myriad of photos and video that was taken at the wedding. (As far as I can tell everyone was armed with at least one camera, even before we handed disposable ones out).

Ok, got that out of my system. Next time its back to angst and irritability for me. Thanks for reading.

Crossposted at AMG

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Usually the trickiest part of writing a good news story is its opening sentence, which should contain as much information as possible while engaging the reader’s attention:

The most important structural element of a story is the lede—namely contained in the story’s first sentence. Lede (pronounced /lid/) is a traditional spelling, from the archaic English¹, used to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from lead, or the typographical term “leading”.[2] The lede is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length. This makes writing a lede an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work.

Then again, sometimes the story just drops in your lap:

A jazz musician was injured Friday after jumping from a burning motor home driven by a one-time roller skating stripper from Lodi.

the blog québécois

Methuselah’s Daughter was very much a labour of love for J.A. Eddy and Dean Esmay, born out of a site written by Eddy over many years. Like many fiction writers, Eddy nursed the main character in the back of his brain long before she was actually recorded, in virtual or other form. Now its hard to say much about this novel without giving too much away.

more

Are we born evil or do we end up that way? I ponder the question over at Love to Lead in today’s debate. Its an interesting concept to ponder and one that enters the whole nature vs nurture debate that has been going on for a very long time. Obviously the more religious will be on the side of yes especially some of the more frothing forms of Christianity.

The Gray Monk has revealed that he has published a work of fiction recently, and Guido, being a good anarchist, went out and searched for it. It took a bit of finding, but it is available if you order it from W H Smith or from Waterstones! It is also available from Amazon and from the publisher Author House online.

Set in a Sci-Fi background it is essentially an adventure story, one the author has used to explore a number of concepts rather well. He has come up with the unusual premise of three young people being dragged from the past into the future and explored how they coped with everyday things we now take for granted – but more importantly, the things we have forgotten and which they bring with them. Simple things like writing letters and making sketches to illustrate them. Like using logarithm tables instead of calculators, or pencil and paper instead of a keyboard. Or how they instinctively respond to a threat with the weapons they are most familiar with – to the surpise and discomfort of their attackers.

There are some surprises in the book which draw heavily on some aspects of history many would rather forget, and on the human ability to survive. The final pages of the book are rather poignant as the young men return to their roots, but not their time period.

The book is entitled “Out of Time” by Patrick G Cox and can be found on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Author House’s sites in the UK and the US.

Enjoy the read, it’s worth it and it is a fun adventure story with a number of smiley moments among the more serious thoughts buried in its pages!

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

Allegedly compiled by high school English teachers, a number of wildly-inappropriate similes taken from student writing. I say allegedly because they’re almost too good to be true. Some commenters also expressed doubts. They claimed they came from the Washington Post, which runs contests soliciting bad writing from its readers; others thought it was the work of Jack Handey.

I had no idea who Handey was, so I googled around to learn that he was is/was a writer/performer for Saturday Night Live. No wonder I didn’t know about him. I haven’t watched the show since the glory days of John Belushi, et. al. (And having seen some of the same skits since, I realized why they were so funny—because I was stoned out of my mind at the time. Let this be a warning of the dangers of drugs.)

Like Steven Wright, Handey makes genuinely funny absurdist observations:

Even though I was their captive, the Indians allowed me quite a bit of freedom. I could walk freely, make my own meals, and even hurl large rocks at their heads. It was only later that I discovered that they were not Indians at all but only dirty-clothes hampers.

More here.

the blog québécois

One of the advantages of getting digital TV in recent weeks has been my ability to catch up with re-runs of television series such as the Sherlock Holmes programmes, starring Jeremy Brett. Brett, a versatile actor, is mesmerising in the role. He gets across the fact that Conan-Doyle’s creation trod a fine line between intellectual genius and madness. I have not seen anything in crime fiction that comes close. I am a fan of the Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe adventures and Roger Simon’s Moses Wine sagas, and it is good to be reminded of the fact that Sherlock Holmes, accompanied by his faithful friend Doctor Watson, remains the greatest of them all.