IDS AND ICE AGENTS
I’m going to postpone my planned post for something I just saw on the news which upset me, and if you saw it, I hope upsets you too.
And ICE AGENT was shown repeatedly asking a woman to show him her ID. I find this unusual in this country. This reminds me of scenes in movies in communist or fascist countries where people are constantly required to show their papers. But considering the current state of things, the comparison is frightening.
I’ve got a question, Shouldn’t ICE Agents, usually masked, be required to show their IDs when confronting a person. Our president recently posted that that area is full of dangerous criminals, rapists, escapees from insane asylums and worse. When someone confronts you wearing a mask, and with all these extremely dangerous people walking around, shouldn’t they be required to identify themselves?
What do you think?
January 15, 2026 at 2:42 pm
THE SHAPE OF ALIENS
Some time ago I heard of a complaint about the shape of aliens in movies. Being a science fiction writer, this caught my attention.
The complaint was that the shape of aliens in movies usually resemble us or look vaguely like us. They will have a torso and a head or something that resembles a head and some sort of sensory organs. Along with appendages be they arms legs or tentacles.
The reason for this post is to present three movies which break this mole.
The first movie is the old classic The Blob which I discussed in a recent previous post. Many know what the Blob looks like. However, younger science fiction enthusiasts may not. You can view The Blob on YouTube to see what the alien does looks like.
The next movie is Solaris. A Russian version of the movie is also available on You Tube. There was also an American version starring George Clooney. In this movie you may not realize who the alien is until the end of the movie. You might even have to read about it on Google to confirm your suspicions.
The final movie is Nope, one of the best science fiction movies I have seen in quite a while. You will have to search for this one. I saw this movie once along with someone having their second viewing. They had to explain a few points in the movie I did not catch. But they still missed who the alien was. If you can’t identify the alien, or make sure you are correct, you again can Google for an explanation identifying the alien and explaining the fine points of the movie.
I will wait until January 18 to post an explanation of the identity of the alien in each movie. This should give you plenty of time to, if you are interested, view all or some of these movies. Whether or not if you watch them you can visit my blog on January 18 for an explanation of the alien’s identity.
January 12, 2026 at 1:20 pm
THE BLOB: A CLASSIC WITH FLAWS
I just finished watching, perhaps, the worst science fiction/horror movie I ever saw. And I have seen quite a few science fiction movies because they are my favorite genres. Yet this movie is one of the most famous movies of this type made during the 1950’s.
The movie was The Blob made in 1958. I must have seen it as a kid. Now I wanted to see the movie again because I live in the middle of Blob country., West Chester, PA. Mentioned in the movie is the town of Downingtown, which is just down the road. But the hub of Blob country is the nearby town of Phoenixville home of the Colonial Theater. The town holds a Blob fest every summer. And if you want to be part of the main event during the fest and redo the most famous scene from the movie you can be part of the crowd running out of the Colonial Theater.
The inspiration for this post was the ending seem in many monster movies of this era, The End ?.
In the movie Steve McQueen is the only name which survived the test of time. I can’t really say he acted in the movie; no one really acted in the movie, they just talked. And I would say the plot was weak at best. The blob comes down as a meteor and forms a crater. In the crater is a small sphere which opens when an old man discovers the crater and when the sphere opens, there is the blob which attaches to the man and the ‘action’ begins. Later in the movie Steve McQueen’s character, along with some of his friends, discovers the crater and a hot rock which they theorize as the origin of the blob. This is never corrected so the origin of the blob goes from being a sphere to a rock.
McQueen’s character and his friends spend the majority of their time trying to convince the town sheriff that there is a monster rolling around town eating people. Soon the sheriff goes from disbelief to accepting the fact that people are being eaten and puts the number at 50 for no apparent reason while trying to disperse the growing crowd. Little to nothing is explained in the movie as to the origin of the Blob. Things just happen. What inspired this piece is how the Blob is defeated.
It turns out that the Blob cannot stand cold. After cooling it down using fire extinguishers they somehow load it onto a transport, I assume the plane is refrigerated, there is a lot that needs to be assumed in this movie. The blob is transported on a pallet which is attached to a parachute and dropped into the arctic.
The end of this movie should, especially if you are a science fiction writer, start your mind churning. Visit my blog on January 21 and your imagination will receive some direction.
January 9, 2026 at 3:29 pm
VENEZUELA VS THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Could someone explain to me why there is not enough money to help millions of Americans to keep their medical benefits through The Affordable Care Act yet there is enough money to send 105 aircraft, carrying highly sophisticated weapons, to attack Venezuela and at the same time maintain a massive naval force off the country’s coast?
And now there is another list of countries who may deserve America’s attention.
I don’t understand anything anymore.
Where are the Adults?
January 6, 2026 at 12:28 pm
We have just finished the annual ‘season of shopping’. What follows are some shopping memories, a time when you only bought what you could afford.
LIFE ON A SHOESTRING
Some time ago I heard a report which stated that the average person carries about eight thousand dollars in debt. I am sure that that amount has increased since then. I have only a couple credit cards and try to keep my debt under control. I also use my credit cards as seldom as possible for they can be easily compromised. But on hearing this broadcast, my mind wandered back to my youth, a time when people not so much lived without but lived with what they could afford.
For most of my youth credit cards did not even exist. They started flourishing in the 60’s so, when I was young, they were not even an option. My parents didn’t even have a checking account. When there was a bill that needed to be paid we went to the drugstore and got a money order. Money orders were the only way we sent money through the mail.
In my neighborhood, credit was not as much a way of life as it is today. People lived on what they could afford. With the exception of houses and cars, you bought what you could pay for then and there. I must admit just writing about life without credit seems so foreign and unreal. Buying just what you can afford seems like such an odd concept, yet that is the way it once was.
The way a person received their pay was also different in my youth. Friday afternoons, my dad was home from working at the tannery for hours, but he had to return Friday afternoons to get his pay. I would sometimes take a ride with him; you could smell his place of employment long before you could see it – Ocean Leather – gaining this name because it was the only tannery at that time that could tan shark skins. We would drive around to the loading dock where drums of chemicals stood, the soil, stained shades of purple and green was soil to be an OSHA nightmare. So, into the building we would go, past large rooms where various stages of tanning was taking place, and into the office. Here my dad was handed a brown envelope with bills and change and that was his pay. That’s the way people were paid back then; you actually held your pay in your hand. It was not electronically sent to your bank from which you electronically paid your bills. You were able to hold what you earned, actually see it.
Friday was also allowance day for me, as it is now for my children. For completing my choirs, I received fifty cents a week, and when I could really control my spending – not wanting another model or book – I turned those quarters into a dollar bill, real folding money, which I would immediately take to the cellar and hide. In some respects, I never did get over the hiding fetish. I still have hordes of Kennedy quarters and half dollars along with a plastic bag stashed away for the new state quarters being minted. To this day a quarter to me is still real money. Although my kids make fun of my concept of value, with a quarter in my pocket I’m okay. How things have changed, and how I remain the same.
January 3, 2026 at 2:55 pm
BOWL GAMES: GREED DILUTES SIGNIFICANE
I first noticed a trend in Bowl Games beginning a few years ago. The number of Bowl Games had increasedcontinues to do so.
I can remember, and I’m talking about maybe 60 years ago, the number of college Bowl Games were few and for a school making it to a Bowl Game was quite an honor. The Bowl Games in existence back then, were to the best of my memory, the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl and along with three or other Bowl Games, most of which were planned on or near New Year’s Day.
How things have changed.
Here are the Bowl Games listed recently in my local newspaper.
Reported on 12/27/2025
Go Bowling Military Bowl
Bad Boy Mower’s Pinstripe Bowl
Wasabi Fenway Bowl
Pop-Tarts Bowl
Snoop Dog Arizona Bowl
Isleta New Mexico Bowl
TaxSlayer Gator Bowl
Kinder’s Texas Bowl
Reported on 12/29/2025
Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl
Liberty Mutual Music City Bowl
Valero Alamo Bowl
I’m sure there are more to come because the ones mentioned don’t include the ones I remember.
Do you see the existence of the trend I mentioned. To me having made it into a Bowl Game has much less significance these days. I could be wrong but the increase in the number of Bowl Games has more to do with profit and recognition of the sponsor then the significance of the game and the honor of playing.
What do you think?
December 31, 2025 at 4:00 pm
THINK NO EVIL
I have always had an active imagination. If I had had the courage to put a bullet through my head when I first realized the consequences of my thoughts, you dear reader, would have more than five days to live. I suggest, for your own sanity, you put down this story. Now!
Consider yourself warned.
I used my vivid imagination to write works of science fiction and had some measure of success. I was not Ray Bradbury, but I was able to make a reasonable living with my novels with flashy covers showing alien worlds and their weird residents. The occasional scantily clad Earth females depicted on the covers didn’t hurt sales either. I would let my imagination run wild and my pen would follow. I do not know the true extent of the powers, but I fear I may have done some damage light years from Earth.
The first hint of my peculiar ability occurred a month ago. I visited a bagel shop early one morning, as was my habit, to avoid crowds. In my southeastern Pennsylvania community, three people constitute a crowd, four a mob.
I entered the store and found, and much to my satisfaction, found I was the only customer. A husband and wife owned and ran the establishment. They were always there together.
I placed my order, and as I stood idly, a strange thought emerged. How easy it would be to rob this store at this early hour. I could write a mystery. It would be my first attempt at something other than science fiction. My mind was consumed with plotting the crime, and as I waited for my bagels, my thoughts set up the robbery scene. Seven days later, that store was robbed and the couple murdered.
What a strange coincidence, I thought, as I read the newspaper.
A few days after the robbery, I was driving along an interstate highway behind an old pickup truck. A ladder was propped up against the tailgate. I imagined the truck hitting a large bump in the road and the ladder being hurled from the truck and through the windshield of the car following. I switched lanes and forgot the vision.
Seven days later a horrendous accident happened, almost identical to the scene I imagined. It made the local news.
This time I was shaking. Was this just a second coincidence?
I tried an experiment. I pictured a week of continuous rain. We were under drought restrictions at the time, so I thought this would be an innocent and perhaps beneficial test. Exactly seven days later, the rains poured down and rivers overran their banks. I had forgotten about the rivers. Property was ruined. Lives were lost.
To avoid more damage, I went back to writing science fiction. Fiction that I ensured occurred far from this planet.
Then it happened. Two days ago, after I vowed never to conjure up stories about the here and now, but I slipped. I was writing a story about an alien ship traveling through an asteroid belt. Before I knew it, my mind was picturing the asteroid that impacted the Earth some sixty-five million years ago causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. But God help me, my mind wandered and took another step. I wondered what the Earth would be like if an asteroid ten times the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs impacted the Earth.
We have five days left.
THE END
December 28, 2025 at 2:01 pm
I post this piece on or around Christmas each year to relive Christmas spirit which in the holiday rush, is sometimes lost.
A CHIRISTMAS TREE STORY
For many years my family practiced a Christmas tradition involved in obtaining a Christmas tree. This experience holds a special place in our hearts. Those of you buying a live tree this Christmas season, a tree with an enormous price, may shed a tear after reading this story.
Many years ago, a friend at work told me about a unique tree farm where trees cost seven dollars. I can assure you that the prices of trees on Christmas tree lots, at that time, were much more. I obtained directions to the farm, and one Sunday afternoon, piled the family into our car and off we went. After a few wrong turns I found the farm. And for years we went there for our Christmas tree and experienced the true meaning of Christmas.
The tree farm was south of Phenixville Pennsylvania. I learned from the owner that the property was once the site of a small airport having a hanger in which he could store his powder blue tail-dragger single engine high wing plane. After many years the hanger was falling apart, and much to his amazement, he was able to fire up the engine and taxi the plane out. But I doubt that the plane will ever fly again.
Now back to the trees.
The tree farm was made up of groves of jack-pine trees, and he spent the off season trimming the trees for sale for Christmas. He was in his late seventies or early eighties, and you could tell, for now, it was his life’s work.
Now a jack-pine is an evergreen with branches, far apart, along its trunk. They were scraggly looking trees, but you could load ornaments along the full length of the branches. As opposed to the usual ‘full’ Christmas trees where only the tips of the branches could be decorated. Once decorated, these jack-pine trees were beautiful.
For tree selection my two daughters brought along multiple scarves to drape on trees which showed promise. Once the ‘perfect tree’ was chosen I cut it down and carried it to the small trailer he kept on the property. He wrapped the tree with twine then went inside with my wife and daughters to sip hot chocolate. While I was left to tie the tree to the car roof coming close to suffering frostbite.
On the wall of the trailer were mounted news articles. Clippings about the farm and his generosity. He donated trees to churches and organizations. I’m he would give trees to those suffering hardship.
Once home, we decorated our scrawny ‘Charlie Brown tree’ and turned it into a thing of beauty.
After a few years of getting our trees at the farm the owner told me he thought he was charging too much so he lowered the price to five dollars. I began bringing him a loaf of homemade cinnamon raisin bread and he told me I could have a tree for free. I assured him that five dollars was what I would pay.
The man through all the years had a collie running free on the property. But the dog wandered somewhere causing someone to complain. A township official arrived and warned the man about his dog. The next time we went to buy a tree he told me that that’s it and he was selling the property. I hope he got a good price and I’m sure some developer filled the land with McMansions sitting cheek to jowl. Houses with no character, only volume.
I will never return to that property because it would spoil my memories of a wonderful Christmas tradition. That fellow was the epitome of the Christmas spirit with the kindness and generosity of the holiday season.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
December 25, 2025 at 5:20 am
A TWO-YEAR-OLD DIED
12/22/2025
I heard on the news this morning that a two-year-old just died. To make the news the circumstances must be suspect. This news grabbed me and would not let go. I suspect the reason is the season and I associate children with happiness, especially now.
What follows are thoughts trying to be a poem.
A TWO-YEAR-OLD DIED
A two-year-old died today,
Does anyone ask, “Why”?
Or break down and cry.
A two-year-old died today,
Will it happen again?
Just a matter of when.
December 23, 2025 at 3:49 am
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