phywriter.com

I got this recipe (or a variation of it) from a co-worker at Parker Pen in Janesville, WI, in 1995. It’s been making my wife purr for thirteen years. She’s from the Southwest and really likes food that evokes the region.

What You’ll Need:

* Crock pot / slow cooker
* 4 to 5 lb. chuck roast (serves 4 to 6)
* 1 cup flour (for dredging, optional)
* 1 green bell pepper (sliced)
* Favorite seasonings (see suggestions)
* 2 to 3 tbsp. of olive oil
* 1 cup of water
* 5 beef bouillon cubes
* 1 box taco shells (we prefer white corn)
* 1 can refried beans
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Tags: green bell pepper, Mexican food, Recipes, shredded beef

…and it was painless!

RGR Issue 48 is live. See it at Scribd!

Ray Gun Revival magazine, Issue 48

Tags: e-zine, RGR, Sci-Fi, science fiction, Space Opera

Quantum of Solace
4 stars out of 5

I was wowed by Casino Royale, a story that gave us a bonus act to finish fleshing out the genesis and arrival of a new secret agent who was refreshingly old school. My dad had the Ian Fleming novels on his bookshelf, and this Bond reminded me very much of the Bond I grew up with my imagination. This Bond isn’t afflicted by quip-itis, doesn’t have the gadgets written in just for the finale, or the preposterous encyclopedic memory. Instead, he is good at precisely one thing, getting his hands dirty in the service of his country.

However, as I read the reviews for Quantum of Solace, the second film in the rebooted James Bond franchise, it quickly became clear to me that people by and large didn’t know what to do with this film. After all, it has a weird title and action sequences by the people that did the Bourne movies, so it must be dreck, right?

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Tags: James Bond, movie review, penance, Quantum of Solace, redemption

I never do this. I reserve this blog as pretty much a writing-only forum to showcase my work. However, this is a topic too big to ignore, and it is about time we stood up and said something.

As I don’t make regular posts, I rather doubt I have any regular readers, however, for those few who do follow this blog, this is what I’m thinking about right now. Let’s start with a column from noted Christian columnist Cal Thomas. You might be surprised at what he wrote.

http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=2419

Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else?

I opt for trying something else.

If results are what conservative Evangelicals want, they already have a model. It is contained in the life and commands of Jesus of Nazareth. Suppose millions of conservative Evangelicals engaged in an old and proven type of radical behavior. Suppose they followed the admonition of Jesus to “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and care for widows and orphans,” not as ends, as so many liberals do by using government, but as a means of demonstrating God’s love for the whole person in order that people might seek Him?

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Tags: Great Commandment, Great Commission, political activism, Religious Right, WWJD

It’s October, Issue #47, of Ray Gun Revival magazine. Don’t be afraid to pick it up!

93 pages

The Overlords’ Lair: The Season of Change

When In Greece, Do as the Romans Do, A Tale of Dean the Space Rogue by Andy Heizeler
Fiction
An innocent faces brutal execution on a planet with strange Luddite customs. Dark forces gather among the stars. Dean and the crew of the Tachyon Valkyrie race against the clock to prevent a murder, and of course, turn a healthy profit.

The Forgotten by R. Cruz
Fiction
What motivates the mysterious Warlord to travel the breadth of time and space to help the most dangerous race in the galaxy change their legacy?

The Glorious Revolution by Steve Case
Fiction
The Slushmasters were divided on this story. It has a strange cadence, a unique voice, a construction that almost struck me as epistolary, a dialogue in written letters. Some will hate it. Some will love it.

Blood Test by Ronald Moore
Fiction
Vampires in space. What’s not to like?

The White Knight Is Talking Backwards by Richard Zwicker
Fiction
If the time we live in is insane, it’s our duty to try to find a way out of the asylum.

“RGR Reviews: Book Reviews” by Matthew Winslow
Reviews
Matthew Windows reviews three Starship books from Mike Resnick.

Featured artist , Maxime Desmettre, Canada

Calamity’s Child, Chapter Four: Rites of Passage, Domino, Part Two by M. Keaton
Serial Fiction
Duelists, intrigue, a space firefight, and an uncooperative bounty–it’s all in a day’s work for Ivan and Red.

Thieves’ Honor: Episode Two - Spider’s Web, Part Two by Keanan Brand
Serial Fiction
It takes a ‘pirate’ to show a young woman of privilege that nothing in space is what it seems. In the meantime, Captain Kristoff continues his game of cat-and-mouse with Captain Zoltana.

Deuces Wild, Season Two, Chapter Six, Suicide Run by L. S. King
Serial Fiction
How do you break an unbreakable blockade? Very carefully. And who took the pie?

The Adventures of the Sky Pirate, Chapter 26, The Friar’s Paradox by Johne Cook
Serial Fiction
The Friar of Briar Island must choose between offering sanctuary to Flynn’s fleeing crew or aiding the pursuing Haddirron Navy, whose benevolence the Friar needs to survive out on the edge of things.

This Raygun For Hire, The Vincent Stone Affair by John M. Whalen
Serial Fiction
Hired gun Frank Carson walks into the office of Vincent Stone, CEO of Trans-Sinclair Oil, and gets an offer he can’t refuse.

Tags: magazine, Ray Gun Revival, RGR, Sci-Fi, Space Opera

My full name is John E (for Elliott) Cook, son of John W. Cook. Some close family and friends called me ‘Johnny’ growing up. My career name is John Cook, and my casual name is Johne (with the middle E snugged up against the first name). It’s a deliberately ambiguous pronunciation which can be pronounced with or without the ‘e’ sound. Personally, I think of it as a silent vanity ‘e’, but I know some people who see it and resort to the Johnny sound, and that’s fine. It’s left up to the beholder.

You’ll note that whether or not you choose to use the vanity trailing ‘e’ in my first name, and whether or not you choose to pronounce it, there is no permutation where the trailing ‘e’ ever appears in my last name. There is no ‘Cooke.’ Ever.

That is all.

Tags: Name, pet peeves, PSA

I bought some delicious seedless red grapes and was feasting on some in the kitchen yesterday while watching football, and my son, 14, came into the kitchen. I said, “Have you ever seen the grape trick?”
He said, “What’s the grape trick?”

I said, “Watch!” and smugly took a juicy, ripe grape, set myself, cocked my head back, and tossed the grape up into the air. It rose until it stopped in mid-air, and then fell in a perfect arc right toward my open mouth.

It bounced off my lower lip and fell to the floor. It bounced twice and rolled off to the side. One of my mini-dachshunds, McKenzie, trotted into the kitchen, wandered over to the grape, sniffed it, gingerly picked it up in her front teeth, strolled over to the rug until the kitchen window, and dropped it on the carpet. She applied pressure until she punctured the grape with her teeth, decided she liked the flavor, and knocked it back. She licked her doggie lips, sat her rump on the floor, and looked up at me.

“Are you done,” I said. She wagged her tail. “Don’t get used to it,” I said. “This will be the one.” She wagged her tail again.

Some people just have no faith.

I plucked another grape, got into my stance — one left forward, knees bent, head back — and gently tossed the grape into the air. Bounced off my mustache and hit the floor.

Kenzie hit that grape like a bass hitting a deerfly.

I tried again. The grape bounced off my teeth and flew into the sink. The next one rocketed toward the ceiling, rebounded hard, and hit me in the nose.

By now, Kenzie’s brother wandered in to join the manna from heaven, and started fielding grapes. I lost them off my cheek, my jaw, my elbow. Finally, I tossed a grape in a perfect arc, popped my head back even further, and the grape plopped neatly into my mouth. “See?” I said. “Nothing to it!”

My son was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. “I see what you mean,” he said. “Doesn’t look so hard.” He went to the sink and plucked two grapes. “I think I see how this trick works,” he said. He held one grape in each hand. “Puppies, are you watching?”

They sat in unison — they were ready.

Ean juggled the grapes and then dropped both the grapes straight to the floor. The dogs darted forward and each grabbed one and trotted back to the rug.

I looked at Ean. He smiled at me. “Ta-daa!”

Tags: Grapes, puppies

Issue #46 is our most feature-packed issue yet. We have two firsts - a book review column by Matthew Winslow, and the beginning of a great new serial novel by Keanan Brand.

86 pages

The Overlords’ Lair: The Crotchety / Sales Debate

Fire on a World of Ice by Jonathon Mast
Pastoric and Deveraux are on the run from bounty hunters. Stranded in an ancient city on an icy world, can they survive?

Dark Running by Justin R. Macumber
Major Charlie Sheppard awakens a prisoner, his memories gone. His fate—and his wife’s—hangs on a truth that is as elusive as a whisper in the night.

Obedience by T.M. Hunter
She is his slave and he is her master, but she can still teach him about the dangers of greed.

Boarders Over Brantial by Jonathan J. Schlosser
When a bomb takes out his ship’s power, Tarin is forced to defend against vicious assault while his dead ship drifts toward Brantial VI.

Message to Mars by Alice M. Roelke
With Earth and Mars on the brink of war, one man a message gets through.

“RGR Reviews: Book Reviews” by Matthew Winslow
Ray Gun Revival debuts a new monthly column from noted reviewer Matthew Winslow! This month: Keeper of Dreams by Orson Scott Card, Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, and Children of the Atom by Wilmar H. Shiras.

“RGR Reviews: The Balcony Fool Reviews TR2N” by Paul Christian Glenn
At long last, a sequel is announced to the classic original story of conflict in cyberspace. Paul Christian Glenn is there to give us an early look at the next generation of Tron.

Featured artist Christian Hecker, Germany

Calamity’s Child, Chapter Four: Rites of Passage, Domino, Part One by M. Keaton
Duelists, intrigue, a space firefight, and an uncooperative bounty–it’s all in a day’s work for Ivan and Red.

Thieves’ Honor: Episode One - Spider’s Web, Part One by Keanan Brand
Captain Kristoff is a smuggler hiding in plain sight, while Captain Zoltana spins a web to bring the smuggler to ‘justice.’

Deuces Wild, Season Two, Chapter Five, Rock and a Hard Place by L. S. King
The crew is caught between a rock and a hard place—the colonists desperately need supplies, and Tristan is honor-bound to bring help, but the Confed blockade is unbreakable. Or is it?

The Adventures of the Sky Pirate, Chapter 25, All the Men in Shadow by Johne Cook
Flynn is rocked by revelations while the Friar of Briar Island faces his toughest opponent–his own legend.

Memory Wipe, Chapter 23, Liun by Sean T. M. Stiennon
Takeda battles his way into Tong’s fortress, finding both hope and despair.

Tags: e-zine, RGR, Sci-Fi, Space Opera

So my son is 14 going on 15 and has been growing like a fast-growing thing. Every day when I get home, he walks up to me and sketches out the difference between our eye-levels to see if he’s finally as tall as I am (I’ve been telling him for years that he’ll be taller than me). Tonight, he walked up to me in my bedroom, where I have a fan and a window-unit air conditioner going, and he was talking on speaker phone with his friend, so there was a lot of noise. He sort of saluted me and said, “I think I love you.”

I looked at him oddly, not because I had any trouble with the sentiment, but because he’s a teenage boy, a social creature not normally given to such brazen expressions of emotion. But, whatever. I said “I think I love you, too?”

He looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing his head off. Then he stepped closer and said, “No, I think I’M LEVEL WITH YOU.” He sketched the invisible eye-line again, and I realized we were comparing how tall he is to me, and not something else.

So I had to break out the song, “Wild Thing” at which point I said, “I think I love you.” He said, again, “I think I’m level, I think I’m level!” at which point I explained that’s the way the song went. He rolled his eyes in comprehension, said, “aaaahhh,” and went off to his room with his speaker phone and a confused friend, and repeated the whole story.

For the record, he’s still a hair shorter than me. But just a hair.

Tags: E., growing pains, kiss this guy