Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.
“Avalanche Sharks” Starring Alexander Mendeluk, Kate Nauta, Benjamin Easterday, Eric Scott Woods, and others. Directed (if you can call it that) by Scott Wheeler. Amazon Prime. 82 minutes. Not Rated Mladen’s take This is an embarrassing confession. Maybe the error… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Epic Pictures Group.
“Big Ass Spider” Starring Greg Grunberg, Clare Kramer, Lombardo Boyar, Lin Shaye and Ruben Pla. Directed by Mike Mendez. 80 minutes. Rated PG-13. Amazon Prime. Del’s take I’m shocked – SHOCKED, I tell you – that Mladen consented to review… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Warner Brothers. — “Gravity” Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. 91 minutes. Rated PG-13. Del’s take “Gravity” is a stunning spectacle of special effects and a riveting depiction of the human will to… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Roger Brown at Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/@roger-brown-3435524/
I got up this morning about 3:30 to use the bathroom. When I turned on the light I saw something move. There, on the bathroom floor, stood a cockroach – not one of the cute TV commercial cartoon roaches that… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Sony Pictures. — “Elysium” Starring Matt Damon, Alice Braga, Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley. Directed by Neill Blomkamp. 1 hour, 49 minutes. Rated R. Mladen’s take It’s tough to criticize a movie where the poor and luckless… READ MORE
Last night I was talking to Mom about my visit today with Dr. Norman Friedman, a local dermatologist. I had several objects on my face I wanted removed, plus my family doctor recommended I have him look at a mole on my cheek.
Mom said if I had procedures done and needed a ride home to give her a call. “Don’t worry, Mom,” I told her. “He’s not going to do anything (today) except look at everything and schedule an appointment for me to come in and have things cut off.”
Well.
As I sat in his examination room he began looking me over. He paid close attention to an object on my lower back, something I hadn’t known was there. He said he was certain it was a skin cancer, but the good news was that in removing it for a biopsy, it would be gone and no follow-up treatment necessary. Then he asked why I’d come to see him. I told him about the objects on my face. He checked them and said, “We’ll remove those just for fun, though I warn you, the procedure is painful.” Great.
First, he took off the offender on my lower back. Then he used some kind of cauterizing device to burn the area. “Phew, that stinks!” I told him. “That’s the aroma of roasted Del,” he answered.
Then he laid me on the examination table to go after the facial objects. He warned me again it was painful and said he’d do one just to test my pain threshold. I’m already a big baby when it comes to doctors, and a bigger baby when it comes to pain, so I was expecting something akin to a root canal. He took a stylus-like object and began tracing it over one of the areas. It was painful, yes, but not so painful I couldn’t stand it. I’m thinking it applied an electric current to the area, scorching the flesh – heck, I don’t know. He did the rest of the areas plus a couple of others for good measure.
As his nurse explained to me how to care for the area on my back, she noticed another area that looked suspicious. She thought about it for a minute, then went to fetch Dr. Friedman for another look. He debated removing it, then finally decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Another Novocain shot, more scraping, more burning. All the while we chatted about the joys of kidney stones.
My face feels like I’ve got a sunburn, but I’m very happy to be rid of these things. I’m even happier to be rid of the one I didn’t know about, the one that was likely cancerous.
So I encourage you to visit your local dermatologist if you haven’t been in awhile. I hadn’t seen Dr. Friedman since 2006 and that was clearly too long to wait. I plan to make it an annual affair.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Last night I was talking to Mom about my visit today with Dr. Norman Friedman, a local dermatologist. I had several objects on my face I wanted removed, plus my family doctor recommended I have him look at a mole… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Paramount Studios. — “Star Trek Into Darkness” Starring Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Peter Weller. Directed by JJ Abrams. 132 minutes. Rated PG. Mladen’s take After watching “Star Trek Into Darkness,” I decided to… READ MORE
Life has changed dramatically since I was a boy, so dramatically I sometimes must remind myself I'm the same person who got up to change the TV channel, then tune the correct color balance. The world of my childhood was much different than today, in some ways better but in many ways not.
When I was a boy, American cars ruled the road - not just Chevys, Fords and Chryslers, but Nashes, Ramblers and other makes from companies that no longer exist. "Foreign" cars consisted of Volkswagen Bugs, MGs and the occasional Triumph. There were no Japanese cars. Also, people tend to think of extended cab pickup trucks as a recent development, but Dodge made extended cabs back in the '60s for the U.S. Air Force. And Ford produced a large van called the Falcon (not the car) that rivaled anything built by Chrysler these days.
TV sets were giant boxes that sat in the corner of the living room. They were furniture, not cute little devices that could be put anywhere, and they were filled with tubes that often burned out. When a tube burned out you had to take off the back of the TV, find the offending tube, take it to a hardware store and plug it in to a machine called a tube tester. Once the tube tester confirmed it had burned out, you bought a new tube and plugged it into the TV. If you were lucky, the TV would start working. If not, you had to find the other tube that burned out.
There were no remotes. You had to get up, cross the living room and manually switch the channel with a knob. Sometimes the contacts on the knob would wear out and the TV wouldn't tune the channel. If you had a color TV - and we didn't get one until 1966 - you had to manually adjust the color between each network, which at the time consisted of ABC, NBC and CBS. ABC tended to produce "hot" colors, lots of reds and oranges. CBS was in the middle and NBC produced "cold" colors, bland flesh tones that always needed warming up. My sister Sandie was the champion of color balancing the picture.
Telephones were hunks of metal sitting on their own table in a strategic location. Later, we graduated to Bakelite phones mounted on the wall. Rich people had extensions in their bedrooms. It was not unusual to share a "party line" with other houses in your neighborhood. You would pick up the phone and hear other people talking. Sometimes, you had to tell them to get off the phone so you could use it.
We didn't have icemakers. We had ice cube trays - and not the bendable plastic trays where the ice cubes pop out. These were metal contraptions with a lift arm that bent the dividers, creating fractures in the ice. You dumped the cubes into the bucket and filled the tray with water and put it back in the freezer. It was a rule the last person to use all the ice was responsible for filling the trays. This produced violent arguments about which miscreant hadn't filled the trays.
Only the better-off families could afford a dishwasher. We washed and dried dishes by hand. Again, whose turn it was to wash dishes became a source of friction in the household.
There were no video games but plenty of board games - Monolopy, Life, Yahtzee, CandyLand, and card games.
Microwave ovens came out in 1966 and we thought they were magical. Still, we wondered if they weren't irradiating our food. In the early '80s, cordless phones arrived. Again, we thought they were magical. I used to brag about being able to talk on the phone and do housework at the same time. We got cable TV in the mid-'60s and it was a gift from the rabbit-eared god - until the cable went out. I remember waiting all summer for a critical scene in the afternoon soap opera "Dark Shadows," only to have the darned TV cable crap out just before it happened. VCRs and 8-track tapes came out in the late '70s and early '80s. You could buy a blank VCR tape for $20, while a pre-recorded movie cost between $80 and $90. Our first home computer was a "Trash 80" that you hooked up to your TV so you could have a "monitor." Digital calculators emerged in the early '70s but cost anywhere from $50 to over $200. I worked for Texas Instruments building calculators in the summer of '74 - one of the best jobs I've ever had.
I got my first home computer in 1991, an IBM PS1, and you could access AOL or another online "community" whose name I've forgotten. Problem was internet usage cost by the minute, so going online was a costly affair. I sent my first e-mail in 1990 and was amazed when I got a response. It was to a friend who worked at Eglin Air Force Base. I thought it was the stuff of science fiction. In 1995 I purchased my first cellphone, a Motorola flip phone. The thing barely worked because the network of cellphone towers didn't exist.
And that's the way it went. Eventually ATM cards, satellite TV, smart phones, terrabyte hard drives, fuel injection and HDTV replaced the world I once knew. I confess it's been a struggle trying to keep up with everything. Bulletin boards, Usenet and Gopher Space have been supplanted by Facebook and other social media networks. Frozen food tastes as good or better than fresh, despite my beloved "TV dinners" of Salisbury steak, peas and carrots, and mashed potatoes and gravy. On twitter I communicate directly with scientists, whereas in the past I would've mailed a typewritten letter and hoped for a response.
The new world has better technology. What I liked about the old was its innocence and focus.
But I feel lucky to have lived in both.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone's stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra's Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone's comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled "December" for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman's Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone's novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild's award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida's best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn't look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Life has changed dramatically since I was a boy, so dramatically I sometimes must remind myself I’m the same person who got up to change the TV channel, then tune the correct color balance. The world of my childhood was… READ MORE
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures. — “Oblivion” Starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Melissa Leo. Directed by Joseph Kosinski. 124 minutes. Rated PG. Del’s take And why did they choose the title “Oblivion”? Because that’s how long… READ MORE
Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios. — “A Good Day to Die Hard” Starring Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch. Directed by John Moore. 97 minutes. Rated R. Mladen’s take Let’s do the numbers. The numbers of objects destroyed in… READ MORE