Rich Paschall

I have been told that when Spencer Tracy gave this speech towards the end of the production of Judgment at Nuremberg, he did it in a single take. Everyone gathered from other sets to listen to him, one of the world’s great actors. When he was done, there was a standing ovation It’s hard to begin to express my level of disappointment with this country. It’s not rage or even anger. It’s a deep…

Fandango’s Provocative Question #168 Yesterday’s question is about anonymity and whether or not anonymity makes online creeps even creepier. How do you feel about online anonymity? Do you believe that when people are hiding their real-world identity, it encourages them to misbehave or to be offensive? Or does it allow people to reveal who they really are or possibly how they would choose to be…

5 Things We Don’t Buy Anymore We are on a fixed income, but the world is on a fast track to insane inflation, so these days, there are many things we don’t buy. Dog food. I make my own from chopped beef. tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, canned peas, and brown rice with a bit of canola oil and a hint of salt. It’s much cheaper than canned food, and it’s not full of soybeans. Duke no longer has the…

CFFC: Abandoned Buildings or Barns In the early 2000s, there were a lot of old, nearly collapsed barns and sheds, as well as long-abandoned mills. Since then, many old wooden mills have burned down, but anything reasonably solid was renovated and converted. Many old mills have been turned into senior housing, a business, or a shopping venue. Most barns have been renovated. They are still barns,…

Thursday Doors Doorway arches, Roxbury – Canon Powershot S100 This Throwback Thursday picture also works as a Thursday Doors picture. Marilyn Armstrong originally posted this on February 25, 2013.

As we all know, the prices on everything have skyrocketed. But luckily for me, I can cook, and I learn quickly hands-on. My boyfriend’s mother has gotten me quickly addicted to making yogurt. At first, I thought she was nuts; you can’t make yogurt from home…that’s way too much work. Nope, it’s easy and tastes 100x better than the store-bought. Yesterday, I made my first batch, and it’s…

Editor’s note: What caught my attention in this “throwback” review of the series by Marilyn was that Chicago has a wizard. Who knew? – RJP I was feeling a bit forlorn after I completed Mike Carey‘s Felix Castor series until Harry Dresden tapped me on the shoulder and invited me into the world created for him by author Jim Butcher. As I read my way through the entire series, 14 books to date,…

FOTD – The Bi-Annual Mowing We don’t mow, or more to the point, we very rarely mow. We don’t mow because we have a lot of wildlife, and they like a natural environment, and usually, so do I. But twice annually, we mow, cut, and clip. If we don’t, we get so overgrown that it becomes impossible to cut back later in the season. We also need to keep the tick population in check. Ticks love tall…

The State of Television, by Rich Paschall When the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission spoke to the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, DC, he began his speech as one might expect. He offered praise for the “noble profession” of broadcasting. He told the group, “When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.”…

I love these funny little birds. They are one of the only birds — maybe the only bird — who can walk down a tree head first. They do most of the things in their lives in some strange position, frequently upside down. It can be hard to tell where their head is versus the rest of their body. Sometimes they are quite pretzeled (is that a word?).

Read, Learn, Write by Rich Paschall Several times on SERENDIPITY, Marilyn discussed reading as a pathway to better writing. No matter how hard I try, I doubt I could have said it in a better literary style than Marilyn already has. It is a magical step from reading a lot to improved writing. I used to love to read. When I look back over the years now, I can not imagine how I was able to read so…

Blogging Insights — “Read a lot.” Dr. Tanya dropped a wonderfully relevant quote today: “You need to read everything. Read fiction, non-fiction, magazines, newspapers. Read history, historical fiction, biography. Read mystery novels, fantasy, SF, horror, mainstream, literary classics, adventure, satire. Every writer has something to teach you, for good or ill. (And yes, you can learn from bad…

It was an innocent, quick trip to the local supermarket. Two or three items, and I would exit the place. I was wrong on so many levels. My fast dash down a shopping lane was quickly stopped. The passage was blocked by a local who always remembers me from TV news days. My retirement is now just about 21 years in the rear-view mirror, but many folks seem to think they saw me just last night. Hey,…

SHARE YOUR WORLD 6-2022 Last night I got more than 600 scams and spams, in which were mixed more than a dozen real comments from real people who aren’t spammers or scammers. That means I had to actually scroll through that entire list. To say that it was a tawdry experience is an understatement. I don’t know how much spam other people get, but 600 in one night does seem to be a bit excessive. I…