Henry VIII was not a nice fellow. Despite the fact that he wrote the song Greensleeves and seemed to be very found good food, he had this nasty habit of killing off people. In the second season of Showtime’s The Tudors we are just getting into the full stride of Henry VIII. Here was a man who would destroy the Catholic Church in England, set himself up as God’s right hand man, and kill a lot of people who didn’t think this such a good idea along the way. There is still that main thrust in the story of Henry…
Category: history
The Beatles Rarities U.S. 1980
This is one of a handful of LPs that I bought new in a record store. Most or my music library at the time consisted of hand-me-downs and thrift store finds. I bought most of my Beatles LPs second hand and had a pretty nice collection at one time. I really loved the bootlegs albums and the off the wall stuff that would pop up once in a while. Nothing really exciting most of the time, just an album you already owned with a never before seen cover. Or maybe a song or two that shouldn’t be there. These still…
Blogvertise-the lure of easy money
Having found a few articles about blogging for dollars, I ran across Blogvertise, which says it will pay you to blog about stuff. Cool, I like blogging and I like getting paid. Seems I am not the only one. A cursory check of Google lead me to Blogger Jobs and then Blogvertise. I find it pretty interesting that there are all these blogs that want people to post on them.Now I have been writing one thing or another for the better part of my life. When not writing, I am reading about writing. But I have never made the small…
Oh The Pain
Maybe I am just a whimp, as my one true love often tells me. But I have these pains. Some are the normal aches and pains of lifting heavy items or working out, but most are just old injuries of one kind or another.I was working on my mum’s house, a rather endless task, as something was always wrong with the place. One time I had folded my six foot four inch frame into that tight little spot under the kitchen sink and was replace an elbow joint. My knees were up around my ears and I needed to shift…
Family History Thoughts
Sad but true, I am a mutt.I can trace my roots back to my dear old Dad and Mum. And that is pretty much it. I mean, I don’t even know what my grandfather’s names were, let alone where they came from or who their parents were. So my interest in genealogy has always been pretty limited.The good folks at Family Forest have this cool idea that we are all interconnected. When we watch The Tudors, we are watching our relatives. I guess this idea could be applied to any historical show that deals with real people who lived and…
Steak & Ale
Steak and Ale was started in 1966, according to the back of the menu I read the other day, and it looks like they haven’t changed a thing since. Which is a good thing, mostly. I don’t eat here often, as I have never been one of those people that love steaks above all things. I had the Prime Rib and baked potato, and had the general feeling that I could have made them at home and they would have been just as good. Maybe that is my trouble with steaks in general, I want to go to a restaurant…
Zen and Juggling
Zen-doctrine that enlightenment can be attained through direct intuitive insightJuggling-throwing and catching several objects simultaneouslyZen Juggling-Enlightenment through throwing and catching. Ok, not really an original idea, there was a book about enlightenment through juggling that was kind of a fun idea, but ended up being totally silly. Kind of like, well, what did you expect?I’m not sure. Maybe it was just me that was silly. After a while you read enough books on finding wise and important people at gas stations or flying planes or selling robes that you just kind of expect all books to hold some kind of…
Juggling, Magic and The Path Not Taken
In the seventh grade I checked a book out of the school library on juggling. It was an odd little book filled with cartoon diagrams and curved arrows indicating where the balls were to go. I bought a can of tennis balls to juggle with and in three weeks of chasing boucning balls all over the house, I learned to juggle. The book also covered clubs, rings, and fire-all of which I juggled with a fair amount of success. And yet there were still no calls from Ringling Brothers.Not that I really expected there to be. A few years later…
To be a Writer, then Read
I have been reading since about the fifth grade. I know this is kind of late and sad by todays standards of forcing the little ones to read by kindergarten, but those were different times. My first real book was Charlotte’s Web. We all got a laugh out of the farmer putting his knee to Wilber’s behind to get him to move. It was a couple of years before I really started reading a lot of stuff of my own choosing. A teacher gave me a stack of old sci-fi magazines and I was hooked for life. There was everything…