Trivia Challenge Answer #1

And to review Monday's question:  What science does Dr. Emma Earl have her doctorate in?

The answer was:

D.  Geology

(Did you notice it was the one that didn't match the letter for the answer?  A Astronomy, B Biology, C Chemistry, D Geology...get it?)

Yep, Emma studies rocks.  Her particular specialty is studying meteors so there's a little astronomy involved I guess.

Cindy Borgne got the pattern and since she was the only one to answer, it's Cindy 5, Rest of the World 0.  But there's still plenty of time for anyone to jump in and catch up.  Hint, hint.

Trivia Challenge Question #1

Now it begins, the great Trivia Challenge.  Answer the question in the comments.  The first one to answer correctly gets 5 points, 3 for the second one, and 1 for the third one--if applicable.

Here's the question: 
In A Hero's Journey, Tales of the Scarlet Knight #1, what science does Dr. Emma Earl have her doctorate in?

A. Astronomy
B.  Biology
C.  Chemistry
D.  Geology

Comics I Read, Mostly Featuring Transformers and Dr. Strange Because They Were On Sale

Happy Epiphany!  At least that's what it is in some religions in parts of the world.  The whole "12 Days of Christmas" thing is supposed to be between Christmas and Epiphany.  Still don't know who wants all those birds and servants and musicians.

Anyway, I've mostly watched Christmas stuff recently so I thought I'd instead review some comics that I bought over the holiday season.

Transformers:  Dark Cybertron:  IDW's Transformers series tries to mesh together pretty much all the non-Michael Bay incarnations of Transformers, including Beast Wars characters.  It can be kind of confusing.  And especially because a lot has happened in the series up to this point.  Starscream is heading a unified government on Cybertron, until Shockwave (who is kind of like a Star Trek Vulcan, all logic and no emotions) launches an elaborate scheme to take over the planet and the universe.  There are a lot of moving parts with things happening on Cybertron, in deep space, and in the "dead universe" which is some kind of netherworld dimension.  I enjoyed it even though I didn't really understand all that happened up to that point. (3/5)

Transformers:  Combiner Wars:  The series eventually continued with the relaunch of combiner teams.  They were Hasbro's answer to Voltron where five mini robots formed one super robot.  The evil Menasor is let loose on a Cybertronian colony and then the heroic Superion is sent to fight him.  But then there are more combiners introduced (reintroduced) like Devastator, Defensor, Bruticus, and Optimus Maximus, which was something that would have been neat in the old series since it features Optimus Prime and four other Autobots.  Like the other it was fun even if I didn't get all the background. (3/5)

Dr. Strange Masterworks Volume 1:  This is the original Dr. Strange series featured in Strange Tales back in the early 60s, written by Stan "the Man" Lee.  Like Spider-Man it started as a backup feature with the Human Torch carrying the main title for a while and then Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD.  Those parts are not included so you just get the 8 page stories of Dr. Strange.  Somehow they became popular despite that they were pretty corny.  The writing was pretty lame.  Everyone uses exclamation points!  All the time!  It gets annoying!  Most of the stories are Dr. Strange fighting his nemesis Baron Mordo, Nightmare, or Dorammadu.  It didn't really pick up until the last six issues or so where there's a continuous story of Mordo and Dorammadu teaming up and Strange going on the run.  Still, it's really hard to imagine how this launched a title popular enough to get a big movie made. (2/5)

Dr. Strange:  The Oath:  This 2012 version written by Brian K Vaughn has an almost noirish feel as Dr. Strange is shot by a burglar armed with Hitler's suicide gun, a weapon so evil it could penetrate Strange's magical defenses.  Saved by the "Night Nurse" (you might have seen her on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones on Netflix) Strange, his servant Wong, and the nurse go on the trail of the killer.  It soon leads them to a pharmaceutical company and a cure for any disease known to man.  It was fun without seeming generically so.  Strange has kind of a stuffy know-it-all quality that conflicts perfectly with the more down-to-earth Night Nurse with Wong as the intermediary between them.  The story of evil Big Pharma also is pretty relevant to our times. (4/5)

Dr. Strange:  The Way of the Weird:  I think this was the latest relaunch of the title, but with Marvel who can tell anymore?  Dr. Strange faces a threat outside our dimension as some outside force called the Inquisition is tracking down and killing magic users.  This is making magic harder to use and eventually the war is going to end up on Strange's doorstep.  This story is largely a copy of "Spider-Verse" where an evil family was hunting and killing all the Spider-Men (and Women) from other dimensions.  The writing wasn't bad but it just felt generic with the bland, wise-cracking hero.  Pick up pretty much any other Marvel title from 2015 and it'll feel exactly the same.  I suppose being bought by Disney has led to this homogeneous feel. (2.5/5)

Dr. Strange & Dr. Doom:  Triumph & Torment:  This graphic novel from the 80s or something pairs up Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom.  A wizard has a challenge to see who will be the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.  Dr. Doom shows up because he has some magic ability.  Of course Dr. Strange wins but Doom asks him a boon that he can't refuse.  That boon is to go to Hell and rescue the soul of Doom's mother.  So they go to Hell and fight Mephisto who is the Marvel Universe's Lucifer or whatever.  The hell part wasn't as epic as it could have been but the end was good.  To pad the book's length they add a couple of random Dr. Strange, Dr. Doom, and Sub-Mariner comics that tangentially apply to this, the Sub-Mariner ones mostly because they're drawn by the same artist, Mike Mignolo, who gained recognition for his Hellboy series.  That was kind of lame but oh well. (3/5)

Justice League 3001, Vol 1:  Sometime during the New 52 DC started Justice League 3000, which was kind of like Futurama--with superheroes!  Cloned versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc are created to save the universe from "the five" that's like the evil Empire or whatever.  The clones are imperfect, though, without all the memories of the originals and in Superman's case he can't fly or use heat vision.  Anyway, 3001 obviously picks up a couple of months later.  The head of the League has been possessed by an evil Lois Lane who sends them on dangerous missions hoping they'll die.  Meanwhile a gender-swapped Guy Gardner Green Lantern joins the team, in case you thought I was the only one to do that sort of thing.  It's pretty fun but confusing.  For one I didn't read the first year of issues and for another there are a lot of loose threads.  I want to read the second (and I think final) volume to see how much gets resolved.  This volume has a killer ending (pun intended) where Superman literally loses his head.  I'd worry about spoilers if I thought anyone who reads this would ever bother to read it. (3/5)

Amazing Spider-Man, Worldwide, Vol 2:  Peter Parker's globe-trotting adventures continue.  In this volume he battles Mr. Negative in China and then Scorpio in Paris/England.   It's a good continuation of Slott's Spider-Man that has been going for over a decade.  (3/5)

Potpourri, and Not That Smelly Stuff Some Cheap Jerk Bought You for XMas

This is going to be pretty much the last random post for a while, so I'm going to get my money's worth.

The "Secret" of Mega-Selling Authors...Is Not Really a Secret 👎

The Washington Post posted this article about mega-selling authors, supposedly unraveling why they sell so much.  The answer?  They write books.  With, like characters and plots and stuff.  Whoa!  That's so innovative!

Look, most writers write a bunch (OK, maybe not GRR Martin) with plots and characters people find interesting.  The difference between why some sell and others don't is just mostly luck whether we want to admit it or not.  A lot of them like Stephen King, John Grisham, Dan Brown or even my own hero John Irving did not find instant fame and fortune.  They had a few books do meh and then eventually one got people's notice and from there people started buying their other books.  As I've said before, there's really no secret formula.

Scammers Could Use Some Help Writing Their Emails💩

I forget where, but I saw an ad somewhere saying you could get $400 a week to have your car wrapped in advertising.  So I clicked the link because why not?  I filled in the form and sent it in.  A few days later I got this largely nonsensical email:

Good Morning, 

How are you today, Hope your having a great day. We want to firstly
apologize for the the sudden information. I just received an update from my
financier that the payment has been issued out and it will deliver
Thursday or Friday.

You can Track on www.usps.com

Here is the USPS tracking # (9405501699320098951485).

The check covers an upfront payment for you, The payment of the
graphic artist coming to wrap your vehicle and the materials suitable
to wrap your vehicle. Get the check deposited into your bank account,
The funds will be made available to you, Take out an upfront payment
of ($400) And send the remainder money to the graphic artist via Walmart to Walmart Transfer.

The graphic artist will be coming to your house to put the wrap on
your vehicle, She will be coming to your place as
soon as she receives the money sent to get your vehicle wrapped. Your
weekly payment continues next week and subsequent payments will be
$400 only. The artist will bring every necessary paperwork and rights
you need to have to carry the advert. We do not directly pay the
artist for a couple of reasons;  One of which is the that we
discovered the applicants are not ready when the artist gets to their
house, So we device the means of having the applicants send the money
to the artist to indicate their readiness. Checks of applicants who
fails to follow instructions will be canceled 3 DAYS AFTER DELIVERY DATE.


This is the information of the graphic artist to send the money via WALMART TO WALMART TRANSFER

NAME:         Samantha Torres
ADDRESS:   1062 coral desert drive
CITY:            Las Vegas
STATE:         Nevada
ZIP:              89123

There is a transfer charge at the store, Take out the transfer charges
and get the remainder sent to her.. Send a pic of theTransfer receipt when your done.

Looking forward to reading from you.

Acknowledge receipt of this email immediately.

Kind Regards.

First off, you can tell it was written by someone who speaks English as a second language just by the poor grammar.  The first sentence ends with a comma instead of a period.  The second sentence uses the wrong form of "your" (as do other places).  It just screams "Nigerian Prince Scam!"  Secondly, the whole narrative doesn't make much sense.  I get a check for $1600 and I wire $1200 to some girl in Las Vegas who will then wrap my car (in Michigan) in advertising?

The first question is:  why don't YOU just pay her?  They offer some lame excuse about me sending her the money will show that I'm ready.  What?  I can't just send a text, email, or use the phone to set up an appointment?  I have to send her money to show I'm ready?  Does that make any sense?  The second question is:  Las Vegas?  She's going to go all the way from Vegas to Detroit for one stupid job that'll probably take an hour or two?  I mean there aren't any other graphic artists between Detroit and Vegas?

Of course all of this is a scam.  Here's how it works:  I get the check, cash the check, wire the money, and then a few days later, guess what?  THE CHECK BOUNCES!  Then I'm out the $2400 I wired, plus NSF fees, plus probably overdraft fees, so I end up not only without the $800 I'm supposed to get, but also losing pretty much everything I have.

So you don't have to tell me it's a scam because I know that.  The point is that if this dude wants his scam to be believable, he could use some writing help.  Professional grammar is a good start.  Then a narrative that makes sense.  Like not having your operative based in fucking Las Vegas when the job is in Detroit.  And saying I should send the money to the "artist" to signal I'm ready?  That makes no sense whatsoever.  Find a better excuse.  Sure this can work, just like infomercials and junk mail work:  you throw enough shit at the wall and some of it is bound to stick.  It would probably work more often if you crafted a better email.

The other giveaway was they sent two checks at the same time with two different companies listed on them.  If the crap in that email wasn't a tipoff, those checks pretty much gave the game away.  I mean it's not like Penske Corporation would be paying me through two different companies, would they?  They'd have one central office for that shit.

Spoiler Space:  The Phantom Menace😠🚀

An article from Comic Book Resources popped up in my Facebook feed a couple of weeks ago.  It was saying that in an early draft of Rogue One, Jyn's mother was a Force user.  So I made the innocuous comment that then Jyn could be Rey's mother in Episode VIII, not really being serious about it.

So this ass named Roger Johnson has to get on his high horse and start fansplaining

this takes place 30-35 years before Force Awakens, Rey would of had to have been born ten years after Rogue One.... and everyone did die at the end of the movie according the darth vader

Um, spoilers, jerk?

 No, of course not.  

how is that spoilers... it says during the title crawl of A New Hope that everyone dies.... this isnt rocket science Patrick Dilloway

Like the ending of the movie is spoiled literally during the opening credits of the first ever Star Wars movie

Except it's not in the crawl!  This is the actual crawl:

Episode IV: A NEW HOPE
"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...."

Where the fuck does that say that the spies died?  NOWHERE!  Well of course he has to try again:

fine it doesnt say it specifically in the crawl.... but i know for a fact it is mentioned in the movie that the rogue one team died sending the plans to leia. like this has been known since before the movie was released in theaters. They beamed the plans before they were killed.. thats how vader knows leia has them

again, if you have seen A New Hope, then you already knew the outcome of the movie. I am not gonna apologize because you cant fucking comprehend a movie trilogy that has had its history wide out in the open for about 40 years

I finally put in the goddamned movie to watch it.  And no, it never says the spies died.  It only says that Leia received a transmission and that Vader traced it to her ship.  You'd think maybe the jerk would finally own up to spoiling the ending of Rogue One.  Nah.  He just kept it going and kept it going.

Vader clearly said Leia was the only link he had to the rebel base after he traced the spies to her

HE TRACED THE SPIES TO HER MEANING HE FOUND THEM AND FOUND WHO THEY SENT THE TRANSMISSION TOO

IF she is the only link, that means the others are dead.....

again, three minutes into the movie... right as he is talking to princess leia

First of all it's not "3 minutes into the movie" that Vader talks to Leia; it's more like 10 minutes.  And again, he only says that he traced the transmission to her ship.  That doesn't mean anyone died.  Spies send transmissions without dying all the freaking time!  As I tried to explain to him, that's kind of a spy's job.

Then of course someone else has to get in on it: 

 Jay Abbit:  We've known these characters died since it was mentioned offhandedly in A New Hope in 1977. 

GAH!!  No one said it "offhandedly" or any other way!!!  You fucking morons!!!!  Just admit you posted spoilers already!!!!! Or at least just shut the fuck up and go away!!!!!!

Honestly, sometimes I'm so fucking ashamed of sci-fi fans.  This know-it-all bullshit in response to what was a fucking joke.  And then not being able to either fess up or just STFU.  The mental fucking gymnastics trying to prove that he was right; it was as bad as arguing with Jay Greenstein.

More Adventures in Self-Publishing

Recently someone wrote this on Transformed for Summer Too:

This could be a halfway decent story if the writer left their politics at the gate. Meh, least it's KU so I didn't spend cash on it

 My thought was:  what politics?  This is a story about a dad who goes undercover as a woman at a summer camp to keep an eye on his daughter and then a killer shows up ala Friday the 13th.  What the hell is political about that?  I could see if you said that about The Hot Girl in the Bathroom, which was about the "bathroom law" in places like North Carolina, but there was nothing political about this!  I put it on sale for free so I could easily download a copy and review it.  The only "political" thing I could see is I mention a character "froze like W Bush on 9/11."  It would seem pretty lame to give a book 1 star for that.

I goofed originally when I loaded Naughty or Nice 2.  On PowerPoint I used an Eric Filler cover as the template for it.  Except I forgot to change the name to my other pseudonym, Ivana Johnson.  The infamous "John Daniels" wrote a 2-star review complaining about this.  Not that the name on the cover should really ruin your enjoyment of the text inside.  That poor fool thinks he's such an expert on Eric Filler and he didn't even know Eric Filler's real name.  Sad!  Hopefully by now Amazon has actually updated the cover on the page.

A New Year, A Brand New Attitude! (Or Not) 💩💩💩💩

The dumpster fire that was 2016 is over.  Time to light fire to a whole new dumpster!  Most likely with Drumpf at the wheel that dumpster will end up being destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.  So, let's eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we could (and probably will) die!

I mean I could spend the next 4 years (or however long until WWIII with China disintegrates us all) picking on Drumpf and the evil Republican regime that's determined to kill many of the people who voted for them, but what's the point?  No one cares.  Especially not right now.  It's still the honeymoon phase.  Eventually the dupes will realize that he's not going to deliver on his crazy promises.

So instead of railing on about that, let's have some fun.  I always liked the Comic Book Challenge I ran back in 2012, but sadly even though I was offering money to the winners, people only grudgingly participated.  Still, I'm not going to be deterred.  I'm going to start a whole new trivia challenge on an even more obscure subject:  my books!

Because this blog is supposed to help sell books, remember?  So here's your new blogging schedule:

Monday:  I'll ask the weekly question relating to one of my books.  Since you probably haven't read that book--though of course you could always go and buy those books to study up--the questions will be multiple choice or true and false, something to give you a fighting chance.

Wednesday:  I'll reveal the answer.  Provided more than one person actually answers the questions, I'll total up the scores.  Let's say the first person gets 5 points, the second gets 3, and the third gets 1 point.

At the end of the year whoever has the most points will win...something.  Probably a gift card for $20 or so.  And there'll probably be something for second and third place--if applicable.

Friday:  I'm going to keep doing weekly reviews:  for me, not so much for you.

The contest starts next week, so you have time to buy some books and bone up.  Not that you will.

The Blog Year in Review

Here's a curious fact:  Before August 10 I only had 2 posts this year with 100 or more views.  Since then every post through November 23rd had more than 100 views, with some having more than 300.  And yet there was no increase in comments, so can I assume it was search bots finding my blog posts?

Here are the posts the bots liked most in reverse order:

• Sims I Like: Anime Babe (334 views)
• Luke Cage Packs a Powerful Punch (334 views)
• Goliath is the Legal Thriller I Hoped "Better Call Saul" Would Be But Isn't  (338 views)
• Things I Thought I Shouldn't Think (356 views)
• Sims I Like: Ms T (362 views)
• You Don't Get the Swag if You Ain't Got the SPAG (363 views)
• The World of Amazon Can Be a Shady Place (369 views)
• 6 1/2 Years of Blogging: What's the Point? (371 views)
• More Comic Book Reviews You Won't Read & Don't Care About (378 views)
• Stuff I Watched: September Edition (380 views)

The weird thing is they're all clustered together from September 26th through October 14th with the "Goliath" entry as an outlier on October 24th.

Make of that what you will.  Happy 2017, y'all!  (Will it be worse than 2016?  Probably.)

On the Twelfth Day of Indie Bookmas...Christmas on the Corner by Andrew Leon 💩💩💩💩💩

Christmas is the time to bury the hatchet and make peace and whatnot, so for the twelfth day of Indie Bookmas it's that indie book Scrooge, Andrew Leon

It's been a hard adjustment for the Howard children, moving to Louisiana. Finding out that one of them is the Guardian, one of them is a wizard, and that one of them... is angry, because he doesn't posses the same talents and gifts as his siblings. In revenge, he tells his sister that there is no Santa Claus, but in a house where anything you can imagine can become real, it turns out to have unexpected results.

Buy it for $2.99 on Amazon or FREE with Kindle Unlimited! 

By the way, here was my XMas Playlist this year on Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and DVD:

• All I Want for Christmas (1991)
• A Muppet Christmas Carol
• Ernest Saves Christmas
• The Santa Clause
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (MST3K version)
• The Ref
• Home Alone
• Home Alone 2
• Miracle on 34th Street (1995)
• Christmas Vacation
• Hogfather
• Bad Santa
• A Christmas Story

And I also watched XMas specials for:

• American Dad
• Futurama
• Bojack Horseman
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Supermansion
• Robot Chicken
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Rick Steves' Christmas in Europe

On the Eleventh Day of Indie Bookmas...Miss Simon's Moxie by Tony Laplume 💩💩💩💩💩

On the Eleventh Day of Indie Bookmas...it's my frenemy, Tony Laplume!

Agnes Butterfield has developed amnesia and ended up lost in the mean streets of suburban Washington, D.C. This is bad, because she’s President of the United States. What follows is a madcap adventure involving bumbling kidnappers, homeless writers, a professional wrestler, and several other hapless individuals, in a story told by the indomitable Miss Simon to her most important audience ever: Tim Laflamme.

Get it for $4.99 on Kindle or $7.00 in paperback!

On the Tenth Day of Indie Bookmas...War Angel by Rusty Carl

On the Tenth Day of Indie Bookmas...it's my favorite cover illustrator, Rusty Carl (formerly Rusty Webb)

Engel Johnson discovers that his Grandmother has been hiding a secret since the final days of World War II. His visit to her death bed reveals that she she witnessed some of the most horrifying moments of the 20th century first hand.

And that she's been keeping a secret for more than 65 years.

This novelette set both in the present day and in waning days of the second World War shows how great forces disrupted the life of one family for generations.

Get it for 99 cents or FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

On the Ninth Day of Indie Bookmas...Small Town Hero by Jessica Stank

On the Ninth Day of Indie Bookmas...it's someone far more athletic than me, Jessica Stank!

Alexander Quinn is a senior at Sydney High, in a tiny farm town in Michigan. He's football star who dreams of playing in the NFL. He lives on a dairy farm with his parents and his father Carl has plans for him to take over the family farm.

Natalie Sullivan is a junior at Alexander's school and she wants nothing more than to win his attention. Her family lives a stone's throw away from the Quinn farm and she has had a crush on Alex for as long as she can remember.

An unexpected illness disrupts everyone's plans and leaves Alexander's hope for a future looking bleak. His family is willing to do anything to save him; even if that means leaving the country for experimental treatment.

This treatment comes at a very high cost, in more ways than one. It also comes with some very strange side effects.

Could Alexander Quinn be the world's first superhuman?

Get it for $2.99 from Amazon or FREE with Kindle Unlimited!