Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

This story follows the events of my debut novel, Henry Garrison, St. Dante's Savior . You don't need to have read the novel for this to make sense (at least, I don't think so), but it certainly doesn't hurt. Hope you enjoy my first short fiction in quite a while! The heavenly aromas of Thanksgiving wafted into Henry Garrison's nostrils, enrapturing him with their particular blend of herbaceous seasonal delights. The savory fragrance of the freshly-brined turkey, the comforting perfume of warm sage in the stuffing, the buttery bouquet of mashed potatoes. And to top it all off, the uniquely tantalizing scent of the big bowl of- Henry's mind snapped back to reality as Ms. Tegg's monotonous recitation of the day's economics lesson hit an unexpected peak as she reached the topic of incentives. Something approaching joy filled her voice as she discussed remuneration, and it was very distracting. The wall clock read 2:47 PM. Each whispered tick represented

         I awaken with a simple desire: to pick up where I left off in Final Fantasy III . I am finally getting around to playing the game, two years after its initial release, in the fallow period before I get my Nintendo 64 for Christmas. I am borrowing my friend's copy, as well as a gargantuan strategy guide he has downloaded from the primordial internet that is approximately the size of the FBI's file on the John F. Kennedy assassination. These few late autumn days off from school give me the precious time I need to take on this adventure that some say lasts upwards of a hundred hours. I have spent the last several wandering back and forth through a small patch of forest fighting dinosaurs.      I'm still adjusting to my environment. Just a few months ago, my family moved on up from our mobile home of ten years to a two-story townhouse on the other side of the city. Though I'm still rather annoyed that we never went back to retrieve the rest of my belongings as

When I was walking down the street today, I saw this: Now this could mean one of two things: either someone is preparing to burn Tobey Maguire in effigy for that dance scene in Spider-Man 3 (which I liked , suck it, haters), or it's Halloween season again! This is perfect, because it gives me an excuse to drone on at length about one of my favorite things: pumpkin carving! Avid readers of my blog may recall my earlier installment about pumpkin carving pioneers Carve-O-Lantern , as well as the sequel post about their product line expansion. Well, there's still plenty of meat on this bone, so I'm diving into a pumpkin PIE-le of patterny goodness to bring you this retrospective! Carve-O-Lantern (and later, Pumpkin Masters) have released so much material over the decades that I could-and possibly might-write about this stuff forever. So let's go waaaaay back to the early days of the brand to take a look at how their pumpkin carving kits have evolved through time. I&

Christmas is a time of family, traditions, family traditions, and the looming specter of insurmountable debt. And nothing shrieks "tradition" like Christmas music, which has not evolved one bit in hundreds of years, give or take. In my family, one of our annual Yuletide traditions was listening to the album Christmas Comedy Classics , or Triple C if you're of the Guy Fieri school of thought regarding abbreviations. A collection of humorous holiday favorites, this compilation got innumerable spins on our CD player, which was a new technology at the time. And to be honest, I was never sure whether or not I liked it. I found some of the songs hilarious, some of them annoying, and most of them either depending on my mood. As such, I decided it was time to take a look back at this album now that I'm a Big Mature Adult and determine once and for all whether Christmas Comedy Classics is overflowing with Christmas cheer or merely a lump of coal being pounded into your ea

          After three Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Power Rankings articles ( here , here and here ), as well as another post delving into some of his more obscure horror artwork, you can probably tell that the artist Stephen Gammell has a special, terrifying place in my heart. It therefore always brings me great joy when I find Gammell's artwork lurking in the most unexpected of places. Like, say, this book of Thanksgiving poetry. Koala not included.      When I ordered Thanksgiving Poems from Amazon, I had no idea what to expect. Which is funny, given that the title is pretty self-explanatory. This thing is, though...the poems aren't really what I'm here for. they're nice and all, but I'm far more interested in what Gammell is bringing to the Thanksgiving table. Would the book be chock full of grotesque imagery, like reanimated turkey corpses hunting for human giblets, or perhaps gravy bowls oozing bloody tendrils? Unsurprisingly, no. Actually, w

              It started in the early 90s, I think. While flipping through the monthly edition of the Oriental Trading Company catalog, I had spotted something I just needed to possess. You see, one of the great virtues of the Oriental Trading Company, besides sounding like an organization that would possess a fleet of merchant ships to be plundered by Jack Sparrow and his ilk, was their yearly cornucopia of Halloween merchandise. Every year in the late summer, OTC's usual inventory of cheap party favors and candy sold by the gross was joined by a plethora of goodies featuring ghosts and goblins, often in the form of cheap party favors and candy. On this particular year, though, one of their seasonal offerings stood skull and shoulder bones over the rest: a haunted village. Consisting of resin statuettes of various structures and characters, the components shared a unique and interesting tall, thin visual style, from the haunted house with a many-windowed pumpkin for a top floo