CE Wills

        Hey, everyone, across the known world. I ventured forth into the haunts of men today. I had to pick up a new pair of spectacles (not shown). I also picked up some new contact lenses. It was a relief to get that chore over with. But the day was not without its pleasures.      I bought the DVD of the latest Star Wars flick. Carley and I had watched it at the theater around the holidays but I'll probably talk about it when I watch it again. When I got home it was blustery and cool but I grilled some steaks. Carley fixed baked taters (southern for potatoes), rolls and salads. She put stuff on the salads until they were a meal. Sure, lettuce, tomato, cheese, grape, pineapple, onion, boiled eggs, strawberry and dressing.     On the steaks I put Cajun, not an actual person but the spice, Greek and Montreal steak spice. The meal was good and I washed had almond-pistachio ice cream for dessert. Then I kicked ...

   Hey, everyone. I watched several hours of the play from Augusta National today. Always a pleasure to see the Masters. It sort of makes me melancholy, to see the place. I worked in Augusta for several years. I enjoyed it and made a lot of money, a rare combination. I feel like I made a mistake when I left, but that's one of many in my life.     When I arrived in Augusta I knew nothing about golf and cared little for the sport. I remember arriving in town late one evening. I went to a steakhouse and saw  paintings of Bobby Jones and Augusta National. I remember remarking to the waitress that it seemed a golf-centered town. She was polite enough to smile and agree. I said that I had noticed that I had came into town on Bobby Jones Expressway and she talked about Mr. Jones a little.     Later, I worked with John Daly's dad for a while.  A friend of mine said,"Jim's got a boy that is a scratch golfer." I didn't know what that was but ...

   Talk about odd things to spend a few hours on. Yesterday, for no apparent reason, I studied the quagmire that is the End User License Agreement. As you know, this is the thing you sign for many downloadable games, software and the like. They would have had a tough time inserting this stuff down the throats of Americans many years ago but now most of us are sadly amenable to clicking the "I agree" box.       I read a lot about the agreements over on the terrific site called Wikipedia. The Eula is a device which is intended to form a contract with the user. Its intent is to give the owner of the software more power in copyright than the law allows for. It is many things, including a salve to company insecurities. Many times a court of law will rule them 'unconscionable'. That is, a judge, in good conscious, can't rule for a company that manipulates a customer's young age, ignorance or careless disregard of reading a long boring document, to sc...

     Hey, everyone. Good morning. I got up this morning with a song on my mind. As the erudite among you might suspect, it was Que Sera, Sera. This song was made famous by Doris Day, back in the 1950's or 1960's. I think it was in a movie she did with the charming Cary Grant. The words mean, whatever will be, will be. It goes like this: Que Sera, Sera. Whatever will be, will be, The future's not ours to see, Que Sera, Sera. When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to me.       I was never crazy about the song, back in the day. I was more into rock, which was sweeping into the teen world at that time. It has a nice melody and a different sort of message to the typical romantic song. Since I've retired I like it more, for some reason. I have the music for it and have played it a few times. But recently I find the song's philosophy of life interesting.  ...

      Hey, everyone, and I hope the holidays find you content and healthy. The title of this post is a bit misleading, since I am already home and plan to be home for Christmas. I'll have to figure out why I used that title in a moment.       This is Christmas Eve, of course. I am sitting here next to the window so I can hear the Fed-Ex guy, should he arrive. I was tracking a package for someone that should remain unnamed. This parcel left a local place around 6 A.M. this morning and should arrive today. Oh, it is not that big of a deal if it arrives after Christmas.      Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of top-secret, devious, underhanded, fun plots in the works for Christmas. I thought seriously about a 'Santa' scheme. When my boys were young, we did the traditional thing and awoke in the middle of the night to place some stuff under the tree from Santa. If there was a bicycle to put together or an AT/...

    Hey, everyone. I watched a good movie this evening and I thought that I would tell you about it. It may have fell through the cracks for you, as it has for me. Despite the fact that I was a movie buff at that time, as well as today, I have never seen the film, until tonight on Turner Classic Movies. It came to the big screen, lo, these many years ago. 1971, to be exact. It was a time of mini-skirts and war in southeast Asia. Jane Fonda had an eye-catching presence in both. She stars as Bree Daniel, an aspiring actress in New York who makes ends meet by being a call girl. She is not a street walker but a highly paid professional of the evening.      A supposed former client of Bree's has gone missing. The man, Tom Gruneman (Robert Mili) has supposedly been sending the call girl creepy letters, but since they are typewritten, it is hard to prove he wrote them. Gruneman is figured to be dead, but his wife hires John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to inve...

        Hey, everyone. I was just thinking about phones. A useful tool with a long history of service. I can remember days when I actually dared to go somewhere without one.      When I was a kid, we didn't have a phone. Most people didn't. Maybe, there was a store nearby that one could go to, in an emergency, to use a phone. Then there were the days when there were"party lines". No, this did not indicate nights of wild revelry with nicely shaped phones. Rather, it meant that a certain number of households would have a common line and number, so that a call would ring perhaps 6 or 7 houses. Believe it or not, some people used this primitive tech to eavesdrop on their neighbors discussions. Today we do this and call it a conference call.      I remember the days when a phone was never carried on one's person. There was a line that attached them to the wall and they were massive and heavy. They were even used to ki...

     Hey, everyone. I had the pleasure of watching a terrific, older movie tonight on TCM (Turner Classic Movies.) The title is Youngblood Hawke. This is a 1964 work that could best be described as a human drama, I suppose. My reason for watching it was because it was about an author, but I found it to be so well done that anyone could enjoy it.     James Franciscus stars as Youngblood Hawke, a young Kentucky lad who aspires to be a writer. No, that's not fair. He is a writer. He drives a truck for a living but works all night, most nights, writing a massive first novel. He sends it to New York to a publisher, as myself and untold millions of other people have done. (I have a few nice form letters of rejection around here somewhere.)       Mr. Hawke is weary of his life, his job and his bitter mother. His uncle has cheated the Hawke family out of their interest in a coal mining property. She is preparing to bring suit again...

    Good evening, and welcome to the author's green retreat. Tonight I had the privilege to watch a very good movie entitled The Man with a Cloak . It is the story of a failed poet in New York City circa 1848. He is a charming rascal called Dupin. He meets a young French woman named Madeline Minot, played by the lovely Leslie Caron. Madeline has just arrived in the states from France, at the behest of her fiance. She goes to the mansion of Charles Thevenet, her fiance's wealthy grandfather. (Played by (Louis Calhern.)      When she finds Thevernet old, sick and being cared for by servants that want him dead, she enlists the aid of Dupin. (Played by Joseph Cotton). Dupin and the girl quickly run afoul of housekeeper Lorna Bounty (Played by Barbara Stanwyck) and butler Martin (played by Joe De Santis.)      There are a multitude of surprises in store for the poet and the young woman. Mr. Thevernet is being denied his medicine and ...

     Hey, everyone. This evening I watched an excellent, and bizarre, older movie from 1951. It is titled Another Man's Poison and stars the late and great Bette Davis and the talented Gary Merrill. Merill plays a bank robber named George Bates. He has robbed a bank with Janet Frobisher's husband and is supposed to meet Frobisher at his estate. When he gets there he discovers that Frobisher's wife (Bette Davis) has disposed of his friend by poisoning him. She is a successful author and the marriage has been on the rocks, much like their house.      Janet is a master manipulator and cons George into disposing of her husband's body. George, in turn, gets to pose as Mr. Frobisher, without the side benefits he might have liked. The byplay between two evil people who will stop at nothing to escape justice and enjoy their undeserved rewards from life is very entertaining.     As the show proceeds, there are more twists to the plot than...

Hey, everyone. Carley and I ventured out to the haunts of men this afternoon. We had a nice meal and bought some books, real paper ones. Then we went to see the movie called Jersey Boys . This is the story of the popular band known as The Four Seasons. We really enjoyed it and both of us would rate it as 4.5 stars out of 5. Here's the recipe.      Frankie Valli and his friends are raised in New Jersey. Frankie, Tommy and Dickie are a small time band until they hire a new member of the group who is a terrific songwriter. The rest, as they say, is history. It is not necessarily a pleasant bit of history for those who lived it, but it made for a terrific movie.     The showing we went to was almost full at mid-day. It was mostly oldsters like myself, but there were a few young folks there. With that many old prostates in the crowd, it was shocking that no one left the theater to visit the restroom during the show. Other than me. Ha, ha. Clint Eastwood...

    Hey, everyone. I watched a terrific movie tonight called, as you might expect from the title of this post, The Banger Sisters. Let me start with the fact that it was brilliantly written by Bob Dolman. I don't know when I have watched something where the writing just jumped out at me as being terrific like it did in this show.      Goldie Hawn stars as Suzette, an aging groupie whose life is floundering. She finds herself single, fired from her job at the legendary Whiskey A-Go-Go (Johnny Rivers cut an album there) in California, and broke. She decides to go see her friend Vinnie (Susan Sarandon) who lives in Phoenix. On the way she picks up a crazy writer, (aren't they all?) who has issues with cleanliness, loneliness and a morbid problem with his dad. Harry is his name and he is portrayed by Geoffrey Rush. Harry has writer's block and hasn't had sex in 10 years. Suzette stays in Harry's room and is something of a muse to the writer, among othe...

    Hey, everyone. I have a channel on satellite that is called Palladia . It broadcasts old, and new, concerts and music shows. Tonight I was fortunate to watch an old concert at the Troubadour Club, out in Los Angeles. It was staged during the Club's 50 year anniversary. About that club...     Seems like I remember Neil Diamond cutting a live album at that place, about 40 years ago. I think a lot of big time entertainers got their start in that place. In fact, James Taylor and Carole King paid homage to the club during the performance.     This particular performance was taped in November, 2007. Both the stars were well-advanced in years but their voices were full and strong. I like watching Carole play the piano. She seems to really enjoy performing. As I watched her, I reasoned that when you get older maybe you appreciate being able to perform and that your body is "on the clock".     Carole King intrigues me. For many y...

    Hey, happy people all over the world. It floats my boat to think about y'all reading this in all the remote corners of the globe. Then again, there are probably plenty of people nearby that read it.      My wife and I were just out. It was one of those nights where you get one of those cravings. No, not like that. We, okay, I, was craving a milkshake so we went to a drive-in reastaurant called Sonic. For those of you in the hinterlands it would remind you of a Happy Days sort of T.V. Show, though it's a chain. At some of them, the car-hops wear roller skates and they play 1960's music over the outdoor speakers.      Anyway, Carley ordered a Hot-Fudge Milkshake and I opted for a Peanut Butter Shake. A lot of people like the real thick shakes but I prefer them when thay are thin enough to drink through a straw. Normally, I like Vanilla about as well as anything. Now they put this whipped cream on top of the shake and a cherry ...

     Hey, everyone. Today I made the rather long drive to my home town. I drive through there very rarely but this was the first time in many years that I actually stopped, looked around and talked to people.      I was surprised to find that much of my animosity toward the area had seemed to fade. Many of the bad memories didn't seem so important now. I was actually able to dig up a few fond memories of the place.     The old courthouse from my youth is now a museum, with a newer one dominating an entire city block. I went into the museum and looked around at civil war artifacts, old documents, weapons and the like. I enjoyed it. I saw several articles that had been donated by an old friend of mine who is now a state representative. He is a good guy, or at least he was 40 years ago. Ha, ha.      I walked outside and sat on an old wooden bench that my Dad used to sit on and argue politics with his aged pards...

    Hey, everyone. The other day I participated in the interview feature over on Smashwords. You can read the piece by looking to your right and clicking the Smashwords link to my author page. As I was answering the questions, I mentioned one of my favorite authors, the late, great, James Clavell.     Mr. Clavell was born in Australia to British parents. He lived an adventuresome life, even being interred in a POW camp and later spending time in Changi prison.      When he became an author, it must have been a shock to him, just how gifted he was at it. If you added Tom Clancy's name to Clavell's, you might have the only two writers who are in a class by themselves. All the other great ones are probably a notch down. Of course, that would be a matter of opinion.      Clavell didn't write many books, but seemed to write really huge novels. In fact, I laid this hardcover on the scales and it weighed in at 4 pounds....

    The elderly among you will get a kick out of this picture. Yes, those are Intellivision Games, made by Mattel, back in the 1970's (?) or 1980's. Yes, I was an adult at that time. Yes, this was Atari's competitor, which never really seemed to catch on, though it was a better gaming system, in my opinion.      The graphics were simplistic by today's standards, but the games were a lot of fun and I played them for untold hours. They provided a welcome diversion from studying Nuclear Theory. My favorite games were Space Armada, Nightstalker and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.       Space Armada was like Space Invaders , but much cooler. The farther you went, the cooler it got. There were invisible creatures that you could only locate by watching them eat your defenses. There were flying saucers that went back and forth at the top of the screen and later in the game would descend to the bottom and apply the killing blow. If you shot ...

    Hey, everyone. It is unseasonably warm in the southern U.S. this week, with temps yesterday hitting the low 70's.  I coaxed Carley into getting out in the yard and tossing around the football for a while. I have been teaching her to throw the spiral; I.E. putting a spin on the ball so that it will fly farther and truer. She has the knack of it.     Speaking of football, The Falcons are now 11 and 1. Drew Brees had a tough night at the Georgia Dome. I respect Drew's abilities but he shouldn't have said that stuff about "We own the division, we know it and they know it".     In sports it is impossible to ignore the luck factor. I'd rather be lucky than good. If you have a measure of both it would seem ideal. The Falcons have had more lucky breaks than normal and are talented as well. I began to follow them from the time of their creation, back in 1966. Up until then, there were not a lot of choices for southerners to pull for. Of c...

     Hey, everyone. As I've mentioned before, I am a bit of an entertainment glutton. I read a lot, play a lot of I-Pad games, watch movies and television etc. Tonight I was scrounging through the satellite channels and ran across an old video I enjoyed. It was from the 1994 Montreux Jazz Festival. In my ignorance, I assumed that it was from Montreal , but I found that this festival is held in Switzerland every year, during July, and is the second biggest such gathering in the world behind one held in Montreal, Canada.     Anyway, this particular video was of Johnny Cash and it was obviously in the latter stage of his life. I got a big kick out of it, because I love the "Man in Black". He had enough wind left to do a good job, even played harmonica a bit. It was nice to see his son, John Carter Cash, on stage with him, picking a guitar. Gee, wonder who taught him to play? June Carter Cash came out and did a few songs as well. Jackson , of course. Wh...

    Hey, everyone. It has been my great pleasure tonight to watch a documentary on T.V. The title of the show was The Untold Story of 007. It was shown on a satellite movie channel called EPIX 1, which is available on Dish Network.     It is the story about the movie-making side of the James Bond series and it was outstanding. I have been a Bond devotee since I was 12 years old and I learned a lot of new things tonight. The film had commentary from several of the Bond actors and several U.S. Presidents, among others. I'll try to share a bit about the film with you.      Ian Fleming was actually in the espionage game during WW 2. He dreamed of buying a beach cottage in Jamaica after retiring and that's what he did. The last time I checked, you could still rent that house for a vacation, something I'd love to do. Fleming started writing the Bond series in that home. He was a bit of a recluse, loved the booze and loved the ladies. When...