tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-188833592011-09-19T05:44:38.400-07:00Short sci-fi, fantasy, horror and dream pieces. Probing unfutures and unreality, and just plain funny stuff, too.scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.comBlogger1231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-71977267315586445432010-12-22T11:09:00.000-08:002010-12-22T11:11:59.972-08:00

Funny dream just now. We went out to the movies (Tron was playing), but after getting the tickets & popcorn and settling down, there was no movie, just a lecture on socialism. But even that was a lie. It was clearly just some new age babble, some darn cult looking for stooges. The audience put up with it, grumbling a bit and slurping their now-empty sodas with some disdain, but surprisingly

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-32817865695525693042010-06-04T00:18:00.000-07:002010-06-04T00:23:33.962-07:00

Here's an odd item ... The Book of Tentacles. It was my top-secret project of 2008 to 2009, edited with the help of Edward Cox over in the U.K. It's a fun romp, all kinds of stories, poems and sketches, from all kinds of genres, all centered on the theme of "tentacles."The book is now available, and here's a rather cute website to tell you more. Enjoy.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-74821177972542982552009-06-30T13:53:00.000-07:002009-06-30T13:54:10.315-07:00

"Quantum mechanics describes what a system might do in the future, whereas classical mechanics describes what it has done in the past." This is a quote attributed to Freeman Dyson in an early 1990's lecture. [CC, p.272]Right or wrong, every now & then you hear a line that brings ideas together in a provocative way. One of the central quirks of quantum mechanics is that things are undecided

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-72886230565138336942009-03-16T14:36:00.001-07:002009-03-16T14:36:55.777-07:00

DNA is not the blueprint for life. Sorry. If you put a piece of DNA in a jar, it will do nothing. It's only part of the picture. In order to function, DNA needs to be in a compatible living cell where all the required chemicals are available. But if you take a fertile living cell and put it in a jar, under most conditions it will die. Each cell can only survive in a certain range of

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-67032812032617308732009-03-09T14:55:00.001-07:002009-03-09T14:56:14.071-07:00

Sexual reproduction is a line of defense against mutations. If one parent has a damaged gene, the other parent (hopefully) has an undamaged gene. If all genes had equal weight, there would be a 50/50 chance of the offspring getting the undamaged gene. In reality, genes can be dominant or recessive, and other factors are probably at work.The natural next question is how creatures started

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-89994629704908927952009-02-04T22:55:00.001-08:002009-02-04T22:55:19.289-08:00

Comically, after splitting up my blogs last year, trying to make more sense out of them, I ended up with no place to put my sci-fi/fantasy/weird clips and news. Sure, the dark stuff goes in Dark Windows (which has now posted over 70,000 words!), and the "weird news" goes into Unlikely Times. But there's this big gap. And I resolved to resolve it in 2009, so here it is ... while I may still add

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-76884566732268929562009-02-04T22:44:00.000-08:002009-02-04T22:55:06.100-08:00

Oh no, if there's one thing you don't want, it's to give me a tool where I can add smartass comments to photos ...moar funny picturesJust a light moment. More of my oddities can be found here.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-34767151781573440482008-05-24T02:02:00.000-07:002008-05-24T02:13:25.872-07:00

I have to admit a love of stories about new species being developed, as well as being reminded of some of the rare oddities in the world around us. Here's one that's probably endangered, though it's sighted so rarely it's hard to know what's going on ... the Giant Oregon earthworm.They grow up to 3 feet long and an inch thick, and smell like flowers. And they can dig up to 15 feet deep. They

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-24214372498164621102008-05-24T01:56:00.000-07:002008-05-24T02:01:06.165-07:00

Archaeologists studying a cave in Oregon have found fossilized dung (probably human) dating to 14,300 years ago. If the human DNA detected was real, and not a result of contamination, this is evidence for people in North America 1,000 years before current scholarship says they arrived.LINK: Seattle Times, 3 Apr 2008

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-89964767419225970672008-05-01T19:35:00.000-07:002008-05-01T19:36:21.765-07:00

As if global warming by greenhouse gases (human or volcanic) isn't enough, throw in some not-quite-periodic ice ages, a slightly variable sun, and now ... global wobbling. You just can't trust the climate anymore.The Earth doesn't spin with perfect precision. The pole is known to wobble in a variety of ways. Most of these changes are a few meters or less, but we now have the tools to measure

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-87270622474687938552008-02-14T13:47:00.000-08:002008-02-14T13:52:46.279-08:00

This blog was going in a few directions, and while I still like the title, I have spun off a few more focused projects.One is The Unlikely Times -- "A journal of the hard-to-believe and the not quite believable."Another is Dark Windows -- an email newsletter of dark fiction, poetry and odd clips from old factual and fictional sources. Plus some dreams, to completely muddy the line between

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-81935675590492136102007-11-04T23:41:00.000-08:002007-11-04T23:56:59.075-08:00

A recent article on ScienceNow says that the cat genome has been about 80% deciphered. Interesting result: cats are more closely related to humans than any of our other common pets are (dogs, hamsters, etc).Of course, "cat people" would not be surprised by this. Cats are like weird little children, with or without a genetic reason. Of course, I have one looking over my shoulder (sleeping on

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-21869300996428545592007-11-02T11:56:00.001-07:002007-11-02T12:00:14.464-07:00

Well, 2 days after I said the spider was doing fine, it vanished completely. Probably starved. I sifted through the leaves beneath its lair, hoping for a closer look (I do have a cheap USB microscope), but it was gone.On the fun side, there's a bright comet in Perseus now. About 2 weeks ago it was a faint 17th-magnitude thing, far off and easily forgotten. But then it got a million times

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-11739283082142108502007-10-26T16:31:00.000-07:002007-10-26T16:49:37.578-07:00

We got smoked out by the firestorm, and evacuated for a day. But rather than focus on that, here's a bizarre naturalist note:We have a big spider living in a classic circular web just outside my office window. It only eats bees, sometimes two a day. When it doesn't catch anything, its abdomen shrinks back down to where it looks like a huge tick. After eating a few bees, it balloons up again.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-87681414970740621132007-09-13T22:46:00.000-07:002007-09-13T22:52:32.377-07:00

Here's a "real life sci-fi" story worth sharing. You might have heard on the news that Steve Fossett (aviator, adventurer) is missing. His plane went down somewhere near Powell Canyon, Nevada and hasn't be found, after over a week of searching.Well, you can actually help look for him online. A fresh satellite image of the area is available, and they set up a very easy-to-use site on Amazon

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-25768850151201073402007-08-24T14:58:00.000-07:002007-08-24T15:10:04.155-07:00

If you noticed a gap in entries, it came from pondering things. One night I zoomed through and tried to update every site, and a few projects wove themselves together.I launched an email newsletter called "Dark Windows." It is taking a book-length collection of dark poetry and stories and serializing it in 2,000-word chunks. With some extra features. You can find it here:http://

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-40433107142637983622007-08-11T11:13:00.000-07:002007-08-11T11:15:54.646-07:00

Strange how dreams come and go. Maybe one night a road rally, the next Elysian Fields, a plane crash or some kind of Westworld with the bald gunslinger chasing us across a broken desert. So real at the time, sometimes TOO real (where we have to get up and walk around the house at 4 a.m. wishing the images will go away), yet at the same time they're less than vapor, gone in the flash burn of our

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-4616304458926845772007-07-08T13:55:00.000-07:002007-07-08T13:57:33.680-07:00

After seeing the Transformers movie just for fun, I figured I could expect some fairly odd dreams. In the movie, a teenager's car comes to life, turns into a giant robot, blah blah.In the dream ...My car didn't come to life, not like in the movies. Instead, the transmission got a mind of its own, kept switching gears at awkward moments, kept trying to crash me into things. It popped into low

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-86137139468812012482007-06-15T14:21:00.000-07:002007-06-15T14:30:09.477-07:00

I was looking for markets to send a new batch of stories and poems to, and stumbled across this classic story:"Fluff and Buttons on the Teddy Bear Range"by Matthew Sanborn Smithpublished at ChiaroscuroCheck it out. It's the perfect blend of being dead serious about the absurd. It reminded me of my first sale to Analog -- "Last of the Soft Things," about how stuffed animals indirectly destroy

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-15155825549455545522007-06-12T23:21:00.000-07:002007-06-12T23:22:10.816-07:00

We got back to the hotel at midnight, and Carmen went to sleep in the first two minutes. But I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd forgot something. I hope we made it clear that we were going back to the hotel, not staying at the house. And now it was too late to call.I couldn't sleep. It reminded me of other possible lapses. Not closing out magazines 100% right - someone out there would

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-19459496338815371582007-06-06T02:04:00.001-07:002007-06-06T02:05:02.434-07:00

Studying bees. Cages, hives, mazes and transmitters, and the everpresent smell of honey. Yummy research, really. But still, I couldn't eat my peanut butter and honey sandwiches instead of the little critters. But one night as I was turning off the lights, and there was a plastic crash, and I was quickly surrounded by a buzzing swarm. They went down my shirt, and stopped, stingers ready ...

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-14140372530504439432007-05-14T13:18:00.000-07:002007-05-14T13:20:05.121-07:00

I had no trouble parking my boat. My friends all broughttheirs. We took over Ridge 30 and overflowed into 29. I jumpedto the pier and let the mooring boy do the rest. But none of myfriends got off their boats. I waited for hours, until morning,when all the boats were gone, including mine. In a state of great displeasure, I set out across town tofind the one guy I did know. After a short

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-31948142754642203962007-05-11T23:14:00.000-07:002007-05-11T23:16:25.163-07:00

Looks like my tale "Jimmy the Box" will be in the July issue of Analog. Complete contents here: http://www.analogsf.com/0707/issue_07.shtmlI hope you'll check it out -- it's a fun little romp.I've been working on some new tales, and a series of nonfiction -- mock science articles on seemingly pointless topics. Hard to explain. I hope to get them "out there" soon. I will avoid littering this

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-64980986027567033442007-04-28T19:44:00.000-07:002007-05-14T13:20:49.015-07:00

Hi again,I hope everyone's doing well out there. Seems like most of my writing these days is describing things I'm selling on eBay, but I've managed a bit of real writing, including selling another offbeat story to Analog and posting some of my short films and outtakes on YouTube.=====> BOOKS & CHAPBOOKS:Poetry chapbook "Peripheral Visions" (NEW) now available from Assume Nothing Press for $6.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-56932093396876602512007-04-26T21:35:00.000-07:002007-04-26T21:45:36.890-07:00

The Unfuture quote of the week comes from the show "Futureweapons:""Anything can happen when you give a machine gun to a robot."I have to agree with the military guys who want little combat robots they can run by remote control. Never send men into a crossfire or a building full of hostile forces when you can send a little metal thing loaded with weapons. We're already programmed to play video

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-91911900612942915172007-04-25T22:28:00.000-07:002007-04-25T22:37:00.501-07:00

Right now there are bees dying. They go out from their nests but never come back. There seems to be an outbreak of what entomologists are calling "colony collapse disorder," and a growing buzz over what's causing it. Possible culprits are cell phone signals, disease, and pesticides. We've got a definite "unfuture" coming if the problem gets out of control. After all, without bees, plants

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-88168514798307914382007-04-21T00:47:00.000-07:002007-04-21T00:48:23.072-07:00

First there was a guy who tried to tune his guitar using the Doppler Effect. He figured that at some delta velocity the thing would sound right. Trouble is, he would never know. It sounded different to everyone he passed on the freeway, always different from the way he himself heard it, standing still with respect to the thnig in his hand. Still, he played in the half-shell house on the

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-87278328820119675452007-04-20T19:12:00.000-07:002007-04-20T19:13:24.812-07:00

Lots of vivid dreams lately...I had a car with a 9-speed stick shift, where the very last gear will teleport the car up to a mile away in a random direction. The non-space bubble would float up or down to the surface of the earth before collapsing and bringing the car back to reality. Someone stole the car when I was in the city looking for clues ... I saw her go around a corner, engine

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-59972734845186174642007-04-17T01:39:00.000-07:002007-04-17T01:41:20.470-07:00

day after day of pushing buttons. never knowing which one will start the reaction, the mixing of fuel, the runaway implosion that forces the core inwards. he sees the gauges behind closed eyes, glowing. they will not let him sleep. the stress in unbearable. alarms go off. temperatures rise, the damned gauges react, the all-or-nothing pressure reaches ALL then releases its rage reducing the

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-74188885113477141822007-04-17T01:19:00.000-07:002007-04-17T01:25:05.887-07:00

I just saw a short piece on CNN about some sex offenders in Miami who are forced to live under a bridge and actually had a parole officer who went under the bridge at 5 a.m. every morning to check up on them. The laws which said they couldn't live within half a mile of any place that "children might congregate" meant there was no place left for them to go.Link here:http://news.yahoo.com/s/wplg/

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-52613376308762563612007-04-14T02:16:00.000-07:002007-04-14T02:17:17.153-07:00

I was hiking somewhere near Globe, AZ and got caught in a sudden sandstorm. Any building looked good through dirt-crusted eyes. I felt my way around the corrugated structure, found an opening and slipped inside.It was pitch black and there was a giant cartoon dog on the wall. At first I thought it was talking to me, but then I saw the three children sitting on the couch in the darkness, lit

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-83261576054378448472007-04-13T00:30:00.000-07:002007-04-13T00:31:05.721-07:00

Craiglist hoax---Here's a strange technology hoax ... someone posted on CraigsList that everything in a certain house in Washington was up for grabs. You could go take whatever you wanted for free. So people showed up, stole everything and gutted the place. They ripped out the water heater, sinks, even light fixtures, probably leaving dangerous bare wires sticking out. Some visitors filled up

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-27576166276188499542007-04-07T09:03:00.000-07:002007-04-07T09:04:01.357-07:00

I was on a ferry, working as the disposal guy. I tried for the cushy disposal job, the one where I could bale together all the plastic jugs and stomp the aluminum cans, but that didn't work out. My boss said that job was for newbies, and he had a related job that got much better tips. That's how I became the dead body disposal guy. Whatever dead bodies people brought me, I would wrap in black

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-87051656732432308192007-03-15T17:06:00.000-07:002007-03-15T17:25:11.120-07:00

I think I killed all those annoying characters from "Heroes" last night. I tipped them off to a secret lab underneath an old brick building in Newark. They showed up in their usual ways, and spent hours talking about how they were feeling. Then they finally got their asses moving and went inside.I wasn't planning on killing them. It was more of a "candid camera" setup, I just wanted to see

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-33997151277104438762007-02-14T00:45:00.000-08:002007-02-14T00:53:47.351-08:00

We did some driving in northwest Arizona in January. Our usual quick zip through a few too many places, not much time to stop. Still, there are moments. Like when we were in Chloride and ran into a guy walking his dog with a rifle slung over his shoulder. That's when I discovered that a few types of people should always get a friendly hello -- women with little kids, older folks, and people

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1166603908786738672006-12-20T00:31:00.000-08:002006-12-20T00:39:48.576-08:00

Okay. Dreams can take us to funky places. I don't mind the nightmares, but sometimes there are all-out comedy moments there, too. Some of my favorites come from the body trying to tell me something.For me, when I have to take a leak, my dreams fill up with mysterious tons of water. Elevators full, airplanes full, waterfalls in the desk drawer, suddenly pulled out of a car and dropped into a

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1166603461383906642006-12-20T00:24:00.000-08:002006-12-20T00:31:01.570-08:00

We went to see "Happy Feet" last week. Figured it would just be goofy, probably some top-tapping in there. I was good to see a film that wants to entertain. There were serious bits, and the expected ecological theme later on. What was odd was that they put so much work into the graphics. If you can sit through the orca scene or the blizzard scene, or the chase scenes without at least

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1166252566055968372006-12-15T22:57:00.000-08:002006-12-15T23:05:41.343-08:00

The past few months, I have been trying to do something other than fiction. But I find that nonfiction just bugs me -- I feel like whatever I'm saying is readily available elsewhere. It's an odd sort of dissatisfaction.So I've been going for the middle ground: trying (again) to do some writing for the gaming markets. But the typical role playing game has so many rules, and I've finally come to

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1165216426144767692006-12-03T23:03:00.000-08:002006-12-03T23:13:46.156-08:00

The local Humane Society was having a fundraising craft fair this weekend, and we had a table. It was an outdoor thing. We wrestled to get the canopy and tables set up on Saturday, and there were some gusty winds. Someone's whole canopy blew over and knocked an old lady down, then the society sent out volunteers with huge bags of dog food to use as sandbags to keep us from blowing away. We

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1164507539733382252006-11-25T18:11:00.000-08:002006-11-25T18:18:59.743-08:00

If there's one thing nobody wants a pop quiz in, it's gymnastics. So when the professor started singling people out and making them do athletic moves on the spur of the moment, I tried to sink into the floor. When it was my turn, I instinctively went into defensive mode and showed everyone how to wield a quarterstaff and a broadsword, using the broom handle by the door. Still, the guy

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1164247049158197812006-11-22T17:56:00.000-08:002006-11-22T17:57:29.173-08:00

Here's a change of pace ...I just posted two of our older short films on YouTube.Check outthe SiberiansandPsyched outThese two are quirky comedies. Enjoy!

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1163490329155638582006-11-13T23:16:00.000-08:002006-11-13T23:45:29.190-08:00

Communicating is a lost art. Just sit there and hear the words pouring out of people's mouths sometimes. It's a source of endless wonder. Now, try to identify the statements one by one, actually count the claims being made. Amazing, huh?Here's one I heard recently: "The Knights Templar came to Canada in the 1640's and brought the Holy Grail with them -- it's buried in an old-style rock tomb

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1162188673858355852006-10-29T21:54:00.000-08:002006-10-29T22:11:13.873-08:00

Coming home from a Halloween Party in Long Beach, it was clear driving for the first 50 miles or so. Then the world got moody. There was a serious marine layer, with waves of clouds passing in front of the yellowish half moon. Looked like smoke at first, but it went on for too many miles. We stopped at a rest area to switch drivers, and there was the moon, low over the Pacific ocean, with

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1161369660440804652006-10-20T11:29:00.000-07:002006-10-20T11:41:00.466-07:00

A rare "dream inside a dream" event: We found ourselves in an upscale senior center on another planet. I couldn't sleep, because I kept dreaming that I had a horrible rash and all my skin was falling off. Not in the red, soupy radiation-sickness way, no -- that would be too normal. Instead, it started as white spots, which became white rings, then turned into hard cake frosting and flaked off.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1160591243061399372006-10-11T11:23:00.000-07:002006-10-11T11:27:23.076-07:00

There was baseball on all the big screens. Fermius said he once hit a triple and knocked in three runs at a company softball game. But the liar was also at pizza that night..."Nyeah, I once knocked in SIX runs. Yeah, six. You ask how? It was Canadian rules baseball. They've got six bases, a hexagon, yeah. But the exchange rate killed it off. It got to where those six Canadian bases were

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1159418267822296572006-09-27T21:31:00.000-07:002006-09-27T21:37:47.836-07:00

I just don't like photographs with people in them. Of all the things in the world to take pictures of, why focus on people? I mean, people are everywhere, swarming in huge numbers, getting on each other's nerves ...What about taking pictures of people to remember them by? You will remember the important ones, and others will fade away. Photos won't change that.What about taking pictures of

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1158556864704203562006-09-17T22:13:00.000-07:002006-09-20T23:19:28.106-07:00

From a simple trip through noplace special ...There was an Odd Lots next to a pawn shop. So, I guess people can pawn their beloved junk, it goes through a hole in the wall and you can buy it back at a big discount right next door?There was a place called Crazyburger. Maybe not such a great choice of names now, with potential Mad Cow Disease out there. I'll have the crazy special with extra

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1157618083497788102006-09-07T01:34:00.000-07:002006-09-07T01:34:43.506-07:00

Time flies, summer is gone, days are getting shorter but still rather toasty outside ... here's my latest writing news.Naturally, if you don't want to receive these occasional newsletters, just email me and I'll take you off my list.=====> BOOKS:New story collection ("Blank Spaces & other dangers") now available fromRage Machine Books. You can grab a copy here: http://www.lulu.com/content/

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1156881508771363422006-08-29T12:57:00.000-07:002006-08-29T12:58:28.786-07:00

The rate at which we kill is alarming. Homeowners try to cash in, make the most they can on the insane inflation, kill all their bushes and plant whatever they think will get them the best offer, then the new owners come in and kill all that stuff and plant what THEY want to see. Then not leaving enough time for irrigation, all those plants suffer and die, or maybe the guy gets a new girlfriend

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1156491012162328312006-08-25T00:29:00.000-07:002006-08-25T00:30:12.173-07:00

I just posted three odd audio pieces I thought you might enjoy ...The Killer Sandwich (funny flash fiction)Overshadowed (poem)Moondust (wild sci-fi story)

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1156318138144630352006-08-23T00:22:00.000-07:002006-08-23T00:28:58.153-07:00

From a two-dream night ...First we were running through a forest, skipping down overgrown slopes, trying to get away from the wizards who were chasing us. They were wimps, but they could set our clothes on fire from a few hundred feet away, so we didn't want them getting too close. The woods ended at a gorge, crossed only by a narrow railway bridge. We heard the ancient locomotive huffing

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1155710369942339252006-08-15T23:36:00.000-07:002006-08-15T23:39:29.953-07:00

There's a jewel in the eye of the thing on the hill. It drips sweat and bleeds sin. It lies in the hole, waiting for night. It suffers thru midday, but the children didn't know. A boy and a girl walked up the hill, the pail in his hand clunking along. He cranked up the bucket from within the hole, but no wanter came up. Instead came a huge eye which glared at him from the bucket. Then

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1154984461369854742006-08-07T13:50:00.000-07:002006-08-08T18:31:57.733-07:00

I never really got into superheroes. Or supervillains. That whole hidden identity thing, and then having to put on the silly spandex costumes before doing battle. What kind of freakish mythology is that anyway?I have no problem with mutant powers. In fact, they could be a lot of fun, when they're not a complete curse. So the X-Men were a bit more realistic, except that they turn funny colors

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1154903468586972012006-08-06T15:21:00.000-07:002006-08-06T15:31:52.730-07:00

We were vacationing in Malta, tracking along rugged coasts and through ancient weathered ruins. There were jagged black cliffs dotted with old pottery shards. At one spot there was a melted trickle from a Roman-era lead mine, but the sky grew dark and I was hit with lightning.We went to a salt pan, where fingers of black primeval stones poked up from an unknown civilization. But the sky grew

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1153494346265315582006-07-21T08:04:00.000-07:002006-07-21T08:05:46.283-07:00

Bog Manby s.c.virtes---Maybe this story was never told.Of how it began and how it developed,I suspect you know naught.The ending which might have shocked generationsyou cannot reconstruct from the brain tissueyou stole from our bog, from my head.How you pulled me from my days of restand proved that I was one of you,this story you proudlybut mistakenly tell.But the true story, the one my father

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1153471342094227702006-07-21T01:30:00.000-07:002006-07-21T01:42:22.123-07:00

I have to admit, I enjoy watching medical mystery shows. The fictional ones are okay, but the factual ones keep showing that the real world is stranger than we can make up easily. Things like "Mystery Diagnosis" or "Medical Incredible", where people may have all their skin fall off or their eyeballs explode, or get crushed by elephants and survive.It's partly research -- what are the limits of

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1153186196681370762006-07-17T18:13:00.000-07:002006-07-17T19:50:06.596-07:00

I regularly hear wild arguments that all art should be free. It's obviously consumers talking here. Easy for them to say! How's that supposed to work, exactly? Who is going to write books 20 years from now if there's no way to make money doing so?Aside from being purely selfish, some of this comes from common delusions about how writing (or other arts) actually work, from a business

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1152566491751065552006-07-10T14:19:00.000-07:002006-07-15T14:51:14.236-07:00

I'm an amateur astronomer who has never been able to afford a telescope. I have many other ironic failures to share, but let's stick to this one. Luckily, there's a boom in astronomy right now, with a mind-boggling array of surveys and catalogs and tools available online. In most other ways, the 21st century has been lame so far. According to the sci-fi classics, we oughta be much further

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1151914476273365042006-07-03T01:06:00.000-07:002006-07-03T01:14:36.346-07:00

I have to say, I enjoy watching William Shatner, no matter what he's doing. He could be doing some weird "Worst Songs of the 80's" show on VH-1, or narrating something about comets, or trying to sell me a hotel room. heck, there was even a 2-hour special recently called "How William Shatner Changed the World." He's older now, but seems to enjoy himself so much more. Sometimes he's lampooning

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1151717143229909362006-06-30T18:15:00.000-07:002006-06-30T18:25:43.243-07:00

First, some entertaining animal news ...A cat chases a bear up a tree?See photo hereA new snake was discovered in Borneo that can change colors like a chameleon.Read it hereThanks to my dad and National Geographic for those items.Now for the stoopid human ...It's funny how our brains can be temporarily shut off, or paying no attention to what our hands our doing. I was smashing open a coconut

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1151563998646075822006-06-28T23:47:00.000-07:002006-06-28T23:53:18.656-07:00

There's a place in town where the propane trucks drive on the wrong side of the road. Witnessed 3 times now. Near a very flammable lumber yard.Was walking around the block, pretending to be fit, and some neighbors were sitting out front of their house with a barbecue going ... except that it smelled like Band-aids. Last night just before 9 there was a luminous blob of goo in the sky. Another

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1151543939586721982006-06-28T18:10:00.000-07:002006-06-28T18:18:59.596-07:00

Well, the blog went and mutated on me. I don't spend as much time pondering the future, since I can barely keep up with the present day. And much of the present day is distractingly weird and unbelievable, so that's where the flow is.In a way, it's about weird viewpoints. And not the kind of "viewpoint" you see on the news, which is just people stuck with their own opinions of things. I'm

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1150619140951292912006-06-18T01:19:00.000-07:002006-06-18T01:25:40.966-07:00

Things overheard or almost said out loud recently ...You can't do #2 on a golf course.Did his business card actually say, "Strawberry Orgasm Engineer"?The problem with burning your trash, if it's full of cat poo, is that the nearest teenagers will complain that it smells like barf.The castle was old, dark, and backlit in an ominous way, with three kinds of celery growing in a small patch right

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1149781015987338512006-06-08T08:29:00.000-07:002006-06-08T08:36:56.026-07:00

We were driving home from somewhere odd. About four hours out of Paducah, we saw a curious sign at the side of the road. "World's Largest Booger - next exit." Now, who could resist that?It turned out to be a monstrous thing in a glass case at the back of a convenience store. It even showed signs of intelligence -- when the caretaker pulled out a plastic separator, the thing would navigate

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1148846305184756642006-05-28T12:56:00.000-07:002006-05-28T12:58:25.196-07:00

Some comic moments from a game session with Fermius ...Beware of the vorpal doberman.Any time a bad guy starts to lecture, just hit 'em with the nearest table.A sorceror optimist: "I keep dying and coming back -- life is good."Jeff's vampiric goat of doom.New spell: Transmute rock to puppies.And ...According to U.S. postal regulations, the only way to ship an eldritch horror is in a stone tube

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1148335879692309802006-05-22T15:05:00.000-07:002006-05-22T15:11:19.693-07:00

If you've ever driven through the Mojave or Arizona Desert at night, you know there are some windy places. Sand blows across the road, cars drive in crooked lines, things fly by that you can't focus on. And there are usually piles of tumbleweeds at the side of the highway. Every now and then the tumblers all leap out as a group -- yaaaaaaaah!In fact, the tumbleweeds hunt in packs and pick off

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1148335509727965972006-05-22T15:01:00.000-07:002006-05-22T15:05:09.746-07:00

Hi - eek, ugh. What happened?Well, I was out in Phoenix at Leprecon on May 5-7, drinking warm Morgans with fake pirates and I meant to login and post some stuff, but forgot the password.Then I left my brain in a suitcase for a while.Then I worked a few long days down at Stu Segall Productions as a production assistant on what turned out to be a soap opera drama thing. Still, I'm oddly at home

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1146457250641895362006-04-30T21:11:00.000-07:002006-04-30T21:20:50.650-07:00

Frogs are nature's meter for water contamination. At the first sign of heavy metals or invading germs, they start sprouting extra legs. First a spare to help them get away, then another spare to trip them up, finally legs and nubs from the middle of their heads. Yet people will say that mutations don't happen, nothing can evolve into something else without going through some kind of silly

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1145856922090914362006-04-23T22:26:00.000-07:002006-04-23T22:47:39.560-07:00

Today was Earth Day, and there was a big festival down at Balboa Park. Naturally, it attracted thousands of gas-burning stink machines (cars) that had to fight for parking. There were lots of little booths everywhere, mostly with overpriced food. A few outdoor stages with music; some good sounds, some international sounds, and a few crooning husband and wife hippie duos (of course).I don't

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1145518237354661972006-04-20T00:25:00.000-07:002006-04-20T00:31:41.246-07:00

Dreams scurry around the bedroom like mice. Only half as nice. Wake up, think I hear them scratching, but it's nothing, or is it? Stucco ceilings shouldn't be allowed in bedrooms - look up at 4 A.M. and the whole blurry surface is crawling, triggering images of spiders and beetles. Roll over, knowing there are microscopic things chewing on my legs, or partying between the weave of the cotton

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1144542951684558492006-04-08T17:33:00.000-07:002006-10-06T11:06:00.216-07:00

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned soap? Soap was working fine for centuries. But now there are thousands of cleaning products, with millions of dollars dumped into scientific and consumer research and testing every year. Now we have whole lines of hair care products full of truly noxious chemicals, and funny little wipes that leave only the toughest germs behind, and soaps with perfumes

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1143508062265036762006-03-27T17:00:00.000-08:002006-03-27T17:07:42.380-08:00

We see only the fluffy pretty stuff when we go to a zoo. I was thinking of all the other things that might be going on, maybe some new events to show a wider range of animal behavior than just pacing around and sleeping all day ...How about:- the meerkat petting zoo (ankle armor recommended, and count your fingers when done)- hand feeding the porcupines (they don't actually shoot those quills,

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1142929774407035762006-03-21T00:24:00.000-08:002006-03-21T00:29:34.420-08:00

Had a dream that I was someone else, some guy dating a pop star. She was pretty by day, but by about 2am she had melted down to a bubbling pink lump. There were gutters at the side of the bed to catch the goop. At the first scent of coffee in the morning, she would slurp back into shape, smile a big white smile, and blast through another action-packed day. Leaving me behind to face a

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1142669480461589052006-03-18T00:09:00.000-08:002006-03-18T00:11:20.473-08:00

Time goes cruising by again. Editing a novel - I think I finally have the "perfect" ingredients. Mainly I wanted to shoot a few numbers in here, to let you know I haven't been doing nothing ...Writing Summary: so far in 2006Stories Written: 10Stories Word Count: 3,955Poems Written: 22Poems Line Count: 495Nonfiction Written: 0Nonfiction Word Count: 0Current Novel Revision: 102 pagesSubmitted

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1141721359253079232006-03-07T00:46:00.000-08:002006-03-07T00:49:19.263-08:00

Video games ... what a weird market.20% of them won't install.Maybe 30% will install but won't run.40% of the ones that actually run are repetitive and boring, or they're just like a game you already have.And if you're really unlucky, you'll get a super-wonderful game that you get addicted to, and it ends up eating whole months of your life.I used to love video games.Now it seems best to leave

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1141262781405432842006-03-01T17:25:00.000-08:002006-03-01T17:26:21.426-08:00

As a long-time sci-fi writer, I used to write about all the wonderful gadgets we'd have someday. Now, everything comes out as deconstruction and "back to basics". The gadgets themselves are fine. I'm bothered by the way companies churn out junk and advertisers convince us we can't live without them.We're surrounded by buttons, but we don't know what any of them really do.Last time I bought a

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1141252202183917632006-03-01T14:24:00.000-08:002006-03-01T14:30:02.200-08:00

I was talking with a friend, and the subject of "big words" came up. He had never heard of antidisestablishmentarianism ... for a long time it was the longest english word in the dictionary. Not counting self-propagating chemical names.In a funny bout of tongue-twisters and bad etymology, we came up with these totally useless phrases:Antiaccomplishmentdisciplinarian -One of those parents who

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1141178888953666832006-02-28T18:05:00.000-08:002006-02-28T18:08:08.966-08:00

Private notes, though what is secrecy but fear? The trouble is that so few wish to understand people. So many will only speak at the surface. So, many will fall apart not knowing what they should have been. In the face of trial. An error.There is a streak of sunlight across the page. A relic of distances beyond conquest. As I write toward it, the tip of the pen throws grainy ellipses out

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1141024199402274862006-02-26T23:09:00.000-08:002006-02-28T18:10:31.016-08:00

Just a quick news flash -- I have a new chapbook available: "Afterlife 9". It's a disturbing parody of afterlife, citylife, social life and hungry machines.Yes, I printed it myself, after a personal record of 18 years of delays -- deaths, burnt things, publishers imploding, and all that jazz. It's $5 postpaid in the USA. I'm getting the vibe that the color cover is worth 50 cents all by

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1140513276549882402006-02-21T01:10:00.000-08:002006-02-21T01:14:36.566-08:00

A room full of zombies? No problem. Oh, wait. Crap. I left my grenades in my other pants. Hang on! My other pants are right here in my backpack. Okay ... who swiped my backpack? I need to find seom friends for are not losers, clowns and thieves. No, Jacob, don't mess with that!KA-BOOM!===In related role-playing news, it has been determined that nothing lights up a pitch-black cave quite

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1140430780444904792006-02-20T02:11:00.000-08:002006-02-20T02:19:40.593-08:00

Whoever said it's fun to put Snap, Crackle, Pop into your morning ... obviously didn't have neck problems.Someday all entertainment will be mere background noise, at which point nothing will be entertaining anymore.If all information is supposed to be free, then nobody can be allowed to make a living creating new content, so in the end there's no choice but for reporters to make up shit as fast

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1140126901504243582006-02-16T13:51:00.000-08:002006-02-16T13:55:01.516-08:00

A recent study at U.C. Berkeley has shown that jobs which offer no cash compensation do, in fact, help our economy by boosting the sales of Quaker oats and Top Ramen products. A participating poet claimed that he could survive for forty days on a single jumbo carton of Quaker oats, and if twenty of those carboard containers are glued together, the resulting hovel is worth at least $249,000 in

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1139991142203403952006-02-15T00:10:00.000-08:002006-02-15T00:12:22.213-08:00

Big news! Two of my short stories are now available at Amazon.com, as part of their new "Amazon Shorts" program. These are two of the funniest tales I've written yet, and I hope you all enjoy them. They're just 49 cents each.One Mistake at a Time - a time travel fiascoandThe Goblin Saint - a tongue-in-cheek fantasyI hope you'll check them out. I think you'll get a kick out of them. Thanks.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1139892033250781402006-02-13T20:29:00.000-08:002006-02-13T20:42:48.883-08:00

What's up with the olympics? I know, we're supposed to be all excited about it, but the coverage just seems to get more lame every time. We get profiles of the Americans, then interviews with them, then we get to see their performances and maybe a Russian or Chinese person or two. Doesn't feel like an international event at all.The new scoring system for skating is bugging my wife. But I

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1138856023318226802006-02-01T20:45:00.000-08:002006-02-01T20:53:43.330-08:00

I was out at pizza night with Fermius, and we came to an odd piece of chat about escaping reality by romanticizing other historical times. But we forget all the crappy bits to make them all sound wonderful.It's the 21st century, and many people fantasize about being pirates (stinky mostly-starving criminals) or living in the wonderful Middle Ages (with all the dirt & disease, tyrants & vermin).

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1138836206329537052006-02-01T15:22:00.000-08:002006-02-01T15:23:26.343-08:00

on divinationby s.c.virtes---The misguided notionOf separable fortune, misfortune,Each travelling in clusters,So that anything good implies more good;These ideas are the babble of children,From start to finish, my day speaks how:There was an extra flavor packetIn my 23 cent soup today ...Does this mean I'll meetThe "girl of my dreams",Or that I will suddenly beginHaving such dreams,Will all

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1138407120835080242006-01-27T16:04:00.000-08:002006-01-27T16:12:00.890-08:00

I guess I signed up for the Stink of the Month Club without realizing it. You know how those clubs advertise impossibly great deals then start sending you stuff you don't want, and you have to pay to ship the junk back, and they charge you anyway?Well maybe it was the chunk of graveyard funk I ordered from that guy in Romania. But no, that was Romania. Doesn't matter.I need to remember to read

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1137530046010722572006-01-17T12:26:00.000-08:002006-01-17T12:34:06.023-08:00

I was at the university library. They really packed the books in there. The shelves were jammed together so you'd have to turn sideways to go around corners. While they must have spent a fortune on the books, they only spent about a dollar fifty on the shelves. When I tripped over a hundred pound copy of The Fermius Guide to Extrasolar Diseases, and reached out my hands to stop my fall, I hit

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1136846344121735462006-01-09T14:29:00.000-08:002006-01-09T14:39:04.146-08:00

A quick comedy homage, in audio form.Listen to it here.I did the audio direction and editing, but only a minor voice role ("whoop whoop whoop").To find out more about the voice talent, seethe Actors Playground.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1136487321395659702006-01-05T10:42:00.000-08:002006-01-05T10:56:21.433-08:00

It's 2006 and there are no jet packs or flying go-karts. Then again, imagine those things in the hands of the typical commuter ... every ten seconds someone would crash into a hill or flame someone else's eyebrows off.Flash Gordon would not be impressed. Just goes to show that sci-fi writers really ARE optimists, crediting us with these great advances. But in the real world the advances sneak

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1136270531392184172006-01-02T22:35:00.000-08:002006-01-02T22:43:13.906-08:00

Had an odd dream last night, just a bunch of commercials for stupid products. The only one I can remember was Wal-Mart's new compendium of barely-useful information ... the Walmanac.Every now and then I'll be eating dinner out, and a few booths away, a hostess is asking Neil Diamond what kind of veggies he wants on the side. He bursts into a chorus of "A yam, I said! A yam, I cried ..."We went

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1135932143250619472005-12-30T00:34:00.000-08:002005-12-30T00:42:23.260-08:00

Okay, someone asked me about the "UFO" non-sequitur in the last post.We were at a rest area on I-10, between Quartzsite and Tonopah. There was this weird bunch of lights up in the sky, so I snapped a photo:A fine example of a thing out of context. Skeptics unite!;-)

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1135914410604104352005-12-29T19:31:00.000-08:002005-12-29T19:46:50.623-08:00

Just had a quick roadtrip to Phoenix for xmas. An odd combination of ancient ruins, desert sand, and finding clean bathrooms in outlet centers in the middle of nowhere. Along the 8, there were homes, miles apart in the pitch blackness, sad little things with a strand or two of icicle lights. They were almost like a cry for recognition. "Hey! We're stranded in the desert!"For Christmas spirit

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1135327774652793522005-12-23T00:45:00.000-08:002005-12-23T00:49:34.663-08:00

where have all the werewolves gone?myths wearing thin, splitting the seams, they lost their bite when plastic toys came along.banished by streetlights, their habitat -- the shadows -- fainter every year, then nowhere left to hide.Awareness out of fashion, video smiles prevail, we have sterilized our fables, swept the beasts under carpets, left them to die on the cutting room floor.===published in

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1135108603748688782005-12-20T11:55:00.000-08:002005-12-20T11:56:43.763-08:00

patterns on the ground    ground shifting with lightslights from the air    air of the nightnight weaves the Network    the Network uniquenight casts the backdrop    for these city streets===For fun, this is the oldest poem of mine to ever get published.Written in 1983 (age 17).-- accepted by Midnight Wine (folded)-- published in Starsong #7 (3/89)

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1134969783162846792005-12-18T21:20:00.000-08:002005-12-18T21:23:03.173-08:00

Daniel Brayson swept the headset from his brow in a vaguely stunned, awkward motion, then he flipped his forehead jack closed and drummed his fingers on the console. What had he just witnessed?It was vertigo, coming through the link, even though all the systems said they were ready. He had tried again and again to clear the strange sensation from the equipment. Now it was time to wonder if what

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1134781899720140142005-12-16T17:09:00.000-08:002005-12-16T17:11:39.730-08:00

Lok stood guard at the Tower of Ro-zan. No infidels or unworthy fools would get past him to see the Tapestry of the Ages. The secrets of life itself were contained in the subatomic weave of the Tapestry, and the secrets must be protected. Imagine if any fool on the streets could learn the transmutations!He stood unmoving. He took his role seriously. If the life-signs along the Road tripped

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1134637506411529812005-12-15T01:04:00.000-08:002005-12-15T01:05:06.423-08:00

The Redding House was a marvel of golden hallways, warmly lit, each room showing collections of rarities from around the world. African swords in one room, Babylonian tablets in another. A wondrous private museum, a privilege to behold. Even the nooks along the hallways were full of goodies, from tiny perfume bottles to painted agate slabs behind laserglass, even a collection of hand bells

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1134373291522590412005-12-11T23:40:00.000-08:002005-12-11T23:41:31.530-08:00

slice of the guillotine  tumbling away    hard-headed, thinkingone one-thousand  two one-thousand    free!---Published in Scavenger's NL #218 (4/02).A cute one - hard to resist.

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18883359.post-1133771473339949042005-12-04T23:54:00.000-08:002005-12-05T00:31:13.360-08:00

I was at the Chargers/Raiders game today, of all places. Jon ended up with an extra ticket, so it was a family day. Of course, he's a Raiders fan, but the good kind. We just wanted to see a good game. Hard to believe how some people get so into it, even at home, a zillion bouncing signal miles from where the action is. It's always an experience, with that many people thundering and screaming

scott veehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11132284269256727955noreply@blogger.com0