Technorati Tags: Droid X, Kindle, Kindle app

Technorati Tags: Horror, vampires, zombies

In the days when you needed print media, agents and publishers played an important role, weeding out the books that simply weren’t good enough in the actual writing department.  Of course there are always exceptions- talking to you, writer of the Twilight books, Stephanie something-or-other- but most of the time, as consumers, we were offered quality.

But now we are inundated.  And all I have to say is, thank you for sample chambers.  My Droid X has the Kindle app, and I will often go through the forums that I belong to and download samples of books that seem like they have promise.  Then, when I am out to lunch or I am waiting in line at the market, I can read the samples.  I’m always looking for new horror to read.  I’ve read all that King and Koontz, Barker and Gaiman, Saul and Straub and Matheson have written.  And I don;t like Vampire romances and I am absolutely tired of zombies and post-apocalyptic worlds.  So I am always looking, hoping to find someone new to hook on to.

So many have potential.  So many seem to have intriguing stories.  The problem is, if the writing ability is not up to snuff, I can not go on.  Because the actual writing is as important as the plot, if not more so in many cases.  Now, not everyone can be a master.  Most people will never have the raw writing talent of King or Gaiman or Barker, and that’s fine.  But you don’t need to be a master to be an effective and competent story teller.  And I don’t think a lot of people have it though they want to.

But too much of what I have been reading is… well, imagine you’re watching American Idol, and you see all of those pissed off and crying contestants who think they can sing but really can’t, and it breaks them when someone impartial tells them they can’t.  A lot of what I am finding is that stuff.

I’m not saying that I am the best.  I know I will never be one of the masters.  But I like to think that my writing is more than competent, that my stories intriguing, and that I will get better as I go.  But sometimes I worry that I won’t be found because there is just so much out there to sift through.

I’d like to think I am one of those diamonds in the rough, but unfortunately, one has to big through a lot of crap before finally finding me.

But, at least e-book publishing has given me the opportunity, and for that, I am thankful.

Technorati Tags: e-books, Horror, Writing

Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning to frantic sound of knocking on your door?  Sure you have.  We all have.  But most of the time its a Jehovah’s Witness or another religious zealot sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong, or some kids trying to sell candy bars to pay for new wrestling unitards or cheerleading outfits.

But have you ever opened the front door early on a Sunday morning and find two men standing in biohazard suits waiting for you?  Bet you haven’t.  But I have.

It was several weeks after 9/11, and I was living in an apartment complex in Edison, New Jersey, and everyone was paranoid.  And when someone smelled something strange…

Anyway, we were given just enough time clothing and then ushered out of the house.  No time to put in contact lenses or even take a piss.  Thankfully I knew where my glasses were.  I felt like I was an extra in the sequel to the movie Outbreak, and as my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were forced out along with every other bleary-eyed resident, I couldn’t help but scan the roof for a loose monkey.  I saw none, and was slightly disappointed.  But I did see plenty of police cars, fire engines, and guys in funny outfits

We were told we wouldn’t be allowed back into the apartment until the mystery subtance that was discovered was fully examined, and they didn’t know how long that would be.  It was cold, so we left for her parents’ house, stopping along the way at a CVS to use the restroom.

We returned ten hours later as dusk set in and found everything quiet.  We talked to a couple of neighbors and learned the truth of the mystery liquid that was found in the entranceway to the apartment building:

Curry,

Someone had spilled curry.  And someone else freaked out and called the police.

Now, you have to understand, Edison, NJ has a very large Indian population, and the smell of curry is very prominent.  Pervasive, even.  When we moved into the apartment, the handles to all of the kitchen cabinets were covered with a thin layer of curry powder, and if I could have stripped the wallpaper, I would have, because the smell had just sunk in. 

To live in Edison is to be intimate with the smell of curry.

Obviously someone was new in town, and instead of maybe asking someone what the strange smell was, he panicked and called the police.

As if someone would waste their time on a chemical attack against a small apartment building in Northern New Jersey.

Dumbass.

See… not a great story, but better than the crap that most people spew on Jeopardy.

I still can’t smell curry without seeing a biohazard suit in my mind’s eye.  Indian food has been ruined for me forever.

Technorati Tags: biohazard, curry, edison, Jeopardy, NJ

Outlandish cases + attractive men and women + plot threads that have everyone sleeping with everyone else = something women will watch.

I wonder if my wife will tune in.  If so, i guess I lose her for the entirety of Thursday evening.  But I can use some good old video game and comic book time.

Now why bring any of this up?  Just to make this final point, I guess:

• I’ve seen better acting in ‘made for the web” pornography than in Grey’s
• I’ve seen better, more cohesive, plots in the same made for the web pornography
• I’ve seen more disturbing sex scenes on Gray’s Anatomy than in professional porn
• I’ve actually felt dirtier watching Gray’s Anatomy than pornography

So the question is, why do women get so uptight and offended when men watch porn while they are allowed to watch such crap with little or no embarrassment?

That’s it.  Just had to get my thoughts out.  Time to go watch some porn.

Technorati Tags: Gray's Anatomy, porn, relationships, TV

Why do the teeth end up like this?  Five reasons:

1. Obviously the Meth itself eats away the teeth.  This is the major cause of the break down
2. The craving for sweet food, which in turn eats away at the soft dentin inside
3. The lack of proper home care being high causes
4. decrease in salivary flow, which helps to neutralize acid and kill bacteria in the mouth
5. The lack of professional cleanings due to lack of caring about one’s appearance

Yes, I have seen it on several occasions.  It is a very obvious, affecting every tooth in the mouth.  The only other thing that even compares to this is baby bottle cavities found in children who drink a lot of milk during the day and are put to bed with a bottle.  Obviously that is NOT as serious in the long run because baby teeth fall out, but there are still issues.

Once Meth Mouth prgoresses this far, there is little to do but extract the teeth and make a denture.

So there you are.  Just like severely stained teeth can point to a tobacco habit (though tea, coffee and wine can also lead to stain), teeth that are dissolved to the gumline is a telltale sign of someone who smokes Meth.

Technorati Tags: crystal meth, drugs, Meth, methamphetamine, oral hygiene, teeth

I remember seeing the Towers that morning, as I saw them every morning.  I remember watching the aftermath of the attacks on the television in the student lounge. 

I remember going outside several minutes later and looking at the smoking Towers

I remember going outside several hours and NOT seeing the Towers where they should have been along the skyline.

I remember all of the juniors and seniors gathering inside the lounge at the end of the day, the Dean of the dental school asking for volunteers to stay later to help out in case they needed extra hands at the emergency room.

I remember sitting around for hours twiddling my thumbs and watching  the news.  We weren’t needed.  Bceause there weren’t many survivors.

You know, the liberal media today things its okay to publish the photos and dead and dying soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq to remind us all of the horrors of war.  Yet during the year, you never see pictures of the smoking Towers.  Or of the terrorists responsible for the disaster.  Its okay to forget those things, but for some reason we must be reminded graphically of the horrors of war.

I remember the sentiment after 9/11, the bloodlust, the anger, the raw emotion.  Its gone now, as the citizens who live in the Northeast and California seemed to have forgotten what was done to us.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Time heals all wounds.  Shit like that.  And we, as a country, seem to have moved past it.

We should never move past this.  Never.  You want to remind us of the horrors of war?  How about we re-publish the photos of the smoking Towers and the photos of the monsters who were responsible every day.  How about we remind the people of this country who have forgotten, who have slipped into the arms of complacency.  People don;t seem to care anymore, and instead of condemning the type of people who committed this act, we coddle them.  Instead of standing firm against the ideology of the religion that committed these acts, we reach out and try to embrace them.

Instead of putting our foot down on the necks of these people, we ask them meekly to change, and to accept us.  its sad, and its pathetic.

You know, I felt a hundred times safer under the watch of Bush and Cheney.  I don’t feel safe now.  I don’t want to be friends with the Muslim world.  I don’t want to be closer with a culture that breeds these monsters.  I want them to hate us.  I want them to feel that we are at ideological odds with them.  Because the moment that the Muslim world comes to accept us, it means we have changed.

And that means we have lost.

We shouldn’t look at pictures of dead soldiers to be reminded of the price of war.  We should be looking at pictures like this to remind us of why going to war was necessary.

 Harsh when it comes to texting laws.  And I couldn’t be happier, and I look forward to other states implementing such laws.  As you know from previous angrydentist posts, I hate the idea of anyone doing anything while driving except for driving.  Talking on the phone is dangerous enough, and texting is even more so.

 It’s a shame that a tragedy has to occur before our state governments move on these things.  In this case, a car carrying two scientists was traveling down a road, minding their own business on their way to work, when a driver coming the opposite direction swerved into them, clipping the car, and forcing it into the path of a truck.

 They died on impact.

 In most states, the problem with charging someone with a texting offense begins with proving that the offender understood that texting was dangerous.  Utah has shown some common sense in this regard: The law now assumes that if you are smart enough to earn a drivers license, you are smart enough to understand the dangers of texting.  First problem out of the say.  The next issue is to prove that the driver was actually texting at the time of the accident, but court subpoenas can do that.

 In Utah, causing an accident while texting is no longer considered an “accident”.  It is on par with drunk driving, an act of willful negligence.  If you are simply pulled over for texting, the fines are steep.  If you hurt or kill someone, you can go to jail for up to 15 years at the court’s direction.

 And I say, it is about time.

 People don’t follow the law, in general, out of respect for the law.  It is a mixture of basic morality and fear.  Yes, fear.  Fear of getting fined.  Fear of getting arrested.  Fear of going to jail.  And finally, one state has the balls to tell its population that if you text while driving and hurt or kill someone, the punishment will not be a simple slap on the wrist.  It will be swift and severe.  Suddenly, the risk of being caught texting is not worth the punishment, and hopefully people will think twice

 And hopefully parents will now have a reason to scare their teenage children into proper driving  behavior.

 Just imagine if the punishment for first degree murder was 30 days in jail and a $1000 fine.  You’d have a lot more murder.  Imagine that there was no longer punishment for killing an abortion doctor.  There would be a lot more dead abortion doctors.  Everything in life is about cost vs benefit, risk vs reward, risk vs punishment.  Now, the punishment for texting far outweighs the reward, and will hopefully strike fear into the driving public of Utah.  If only more states, especially the more congested states, would pass the same laws, well, we’d be on a good path.

Now, what incenses me more than anything are these assholes, these arrogant, self-absorbed cock sucker, who claim they can multi-task and have no problem texting will driving.  Guess what: Most people who say they can multi-task, can’t.  Driving a car is a privilege, not a right, and when you are sharing public roads with thousands of other people, you do NOT have the right to put everyone else at risk because you think that you can text and drive at the same time.  Because all it takes is one moment of looking down, one moment of reading a snippet of text, one moment of searching for a letter, to miss the fact that the car in front of you has stopped short because of traffic.

 All it takes is one moment of distraction to kill someone.

 Now do not try to compare texting to looking for a radio station or having a cigarette or eating something, because they are a different class of actions.  They do not drag your attention away from what is going on in front of and around you.  Texting is akin to looking at the floor between your legs for something you dropped while driving.  They are different, and anyone with half a brain understands the distinction between active texting and simply glancing at the radio.  If you want to argue this point, you are simply being ignornant, trying to defend your actions anyway possible.  Because deep down, in the rational part of everyone’s mind, they know they’re different

 Studies have been done that show when you drive while on the phone, your reaction time is the same as someone who is legally drunk.  And if you text while you drive, your reaction time is twice as bad as that.  So don’t do it.

 It’s sad, really the perceptions of young people these days.  I caught a snippet of Dr. Phil (against my will, while examining a patient) where he was interviewing a teenage girl who thought that there was nothing wrong with her habit despite getting into one accident, almost getting into two others, and almost hitting a pedestrian.  Maybe it takes a harsh punishment for these kids to understand how dangerous their behavior is.  I don’t understand the mindset of these people.  Cars are for driving.  And guess what- nothing is that important that you can’t wait until you get where you’re going to write a text.  No one’s life is worth that.  And even one person killed by an inattentive texter is one too many.  Because there is no excuse for texting while you drive.  No excuse for putting everyone around you at risk simply to write your girlfriend that you’re think about her while your on your way over to her place.

 There is simply never an excuse for participating in such a dangerous activity.

 And finally, one state out of fifty, has said that they have had enough.  Its not much, buut it’s a start.  Unfortunately, you have people out there who think that going to jail for killing someone while texting is too harsh.  I say that it isn’t harsh enough.  Because negligence NEEDS to be punished.  Maybe then people will think twice about willfully engaging in behavior that is dangerous to everyone else around them.

 If you want to text while driving and wrap your own car around a telephone, killing yourself but no one else, have a ball.  I won’t stop you.  But if you kill someone else… if someone else’s mother or father, son or daughter, brother or sister die because of your disregard for everyone else right to live, well then, you can rot in jail for the rest of your life for all I care.

 Click here for oringial article from the NY Times

Technorati Tags: cell phones, crime, dangerous behavior, driving, drunk, punishment, texting, Utah