Steven Howell Wilson's Blog, page 39
October 31, 2015
Prometheus Radio Theatre offers a new Cattail Country Store and many other chilling tales for Halloween night
The Cattail Country Store is once again open for business. Of course, it’s only open when someone needs it to be, and that means someone’s in trouble. This time, it’s two girls named Sarah and Liz who wander inexplicably in from the swamps of Louisiana, and possibly from the pages of history.
And don’t forget that Prometheus has brought you many tales of horror and the paranormal over the years. Check out these:...
<![endif]--><!--[if lt IE 9]>
October 28, 2015
Freedom’s Blood – Part 2 of 5
I arrived in Baltimore later that same day, ravenously hungry. I drank a bum. Killed him, of course. That was what my sire had done with his victims, myself excepted. I was merely continuing as he had taught me. Besides, the bum was near death anyway. He’d polluted his body to the point that his liver was about to fail. It was one of the worst meals of my life, to that point and to this day. Still, I was sated, and had time to be choosy with my next meal.
On the evening of my second solo kill...
October 21, 2015
Freedom’s Blood – Part 1 of 5
by Steven H. Wilson
I thought it might be nice, me being a fiction writer, and this being Hallowe’en, to actually share a story on the site. This, by the way, was podcast a long time back. But I’m betting a lot of my readers aren’t necessarily listeners. So here ya go…
I knew it was a bad idea all along. Well, all right, I should have known. I’ve been kicking myself for weeks now, because I should have known. I’ve successfully avoided this kind of situation for over 250 years.
Any idiot knows...
October 14, 2015
Ain’t No Shame – Why We Need to Get Rid of the Idea of Being Ashamed
“Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race.”
These words were uttered by down-on-his-luck cabaret singer Carol Todd (Robert Preston) in Blake Edwards’s immortal film Victor/Victoria, one of my all-time favorites. I recently posted this quote on Facebook, amidst other words of rancor not so clever as those penned by the late Mr. Edwards, because someone had told my wife and son they should be ashamed of their behavior.
“Why?” you asked. (Well, some of...
October 7, 2015
How the Knowitall Got His Ignorance – A Just Shut Up Story
How the Knowitall Got His Ignorance
A Just Shut-up Story
by Steven H. Wilson
In the Very Big City, once upon a time, O you Little Monsters, there was a Knowitall, and he knew everything. Or perhaps it was in the Impressive University, or the Efficient Workplace. I can’t recall which it was. It is just possible that the Knowitall was everywhere then, as he is today. Suffice to say that he was somewhere, and he knew everything there was to be known. He knew the depth of the ocean, and the heigh...
September 30, 2015
The Stuff I (don’t really) Overhear at Lunch
So I’m sitting at lunch, reading, and there are these two guys at the next table. One is young–under 30, I think–one middle-aged. My generation. Full head of hair but it’s gray. I judge by mannerisms. Young guy has a couple lines on his face, but his body language says his mind is still in a dorm room. Middle-aged guy has that pose that says he knows he’s in charge. Call it 55-60. I suck at guessing ages. A lot of people my age look pretty damn old to me. I’m still reeling from learning that...
September 23, 2015
Guest Blog: I Lost a Good Friend of Mine Today!!!
Tonight, a guest blog, and the blogger is Battalion Chief (ret) Donald Howell. Although Chief Howell and I share long service at Howard County Fire & Rescue, we never served together as members. He retired a year before I began working there. We became co-workers, and then friends, while he was Executive Director of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF). He hired me to be his IT Consultant back in 2001.
This past Friday, we lost a dear friend, another retired firefight...
September 16, 2015
Getting Slapped Upside the Head by an 18-Year-Old
Now, before you call the cops on anyone to report me as a victim of assault, domestic or otherwise, be aware that the 18-year-old in question is me. And to be absolutely accurate, he’s between 18 and 21, all those ages, all at the same time. He slapped me upside the head with memories of him… me… when I took a nostalgic trip to my alma mater this past weekend.
Warning. This blog is stupid self-indulgent. There is no benefit to you, the reader, intended herein. This is all about me, and I make...
September 9, 2015
Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say…? School Monitoring of Social Media
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Or this.
Basically, the Orange County School System in Florida has started using a software package to monitor the social media posts of all students and staff. The software, SnapTrends, would harvest posts (presumably after a list of names or user IDs is uploaded into it by the School System) and filter for certain words like “kill, knife, or gun.” If it finds them, school personnel will presumably investigate further to see if a student is a threat or nee...
