CE Wills

   Hey, everyone. As you know, Halloween is approaching and I like to do a spooky post occasionally.( By the way, check out the tab (label) at the bottom of this post that says 'Spooky'. Especially, you should read Campfire Song, The Old Man In the Straw Hat and The White Sign .) Anyway, this is a true story.     The other evening I got a message on my I-Pad that says, "Google Maps has requested access to your microphone." Weird, since I have never even used that app, or at least not recently. No big deal, I like a good joke as much as anybody. So, I push "Don't Allow" and go to the Google Maps app and delete it.      Then today, I had been reading the morning news on different sites and had closed the Padster and placed it on my keyboard (music keyboard). As I walked to the kitchen I heard a soft ding and returned to open the 'smart cover' on the device, thinking I'd gotten an email.    To my surprise the screen was filled ...

    If you have time on this busiest and best of Sports weekends, you might want to check out a game called Bloodroofs . It is an endless runner/jumper/shooter. The graphics are top-notch and the gameplay is fun. It is $2.99 at the moment and the file size is a small 47 MB. It just came out on the ole app store moments ago and I took the notion to buy it. Here's the recipe.     In a spooky world of rain, monsters and magic, you play as Jake, a macho, roof jumping, lady-carrying dude. It is coming a heck of a storm and a group of evil magicians have called forth some monsters to take control of the city. As Jake flees from roof to roof he has to swing down, using his whip for a rope, and snatch Catherine to his breast. She is lying on a roof with an injured leg and an automatic weapon. So, Jake carries her, runs and jumps from roof to roof, while the lovely Catherine shoots the ghouls. By the way, you pick up coins and other goodies as you run. An interesti...

     Hey, everyone. I just finished the latest novel by John Locke. It is titled Box . It is the story of a world renowned surgeon named, coincidentally, Gideon Box. Dr. Box is brilliant in his chosen field of endeavor but less skilled in anything that involves social interaction. He can't get along with people and is so bad at relationships that his flings at 'romance' normally involve strippers, lap dances and on-line dating services.      After a grueling operation, Box goes on a bender that involves going to visit three women in rural Kentucky that he 'met' on line. I would like to say that these women run the gamut between harmless and dangerous but that would be a misrepresentation. They are all dangerous. One of them has lied about all her particulars. Worse than that, she has pet seahorses and makes a particular powder that can be used as a weapon. The powder contains ground glass, among other things.      Without giving ...

   Hey, everyone. I broke my own rule and bought a premium game last evening. It was a hefty $4.99 and was a file size of 110 MB. The name of the game is Trigger Fist . The title seems odd but who am I to question it?     This is a shooter game and there is a lot to say about it. Let's get started.     Firstly, there are six different maps or battlegrounds. They are marvelously rendered and the graphics of the I-Pad 3 really shows the game off. I enjoyed walking through a desert town and pausing to look up at the night sky. Van Gogh could have painted his Starry Night here, except for the bullets whining overhead. In another locale, I was sneaking down a big concrete porch with benches against the wall. I would fain have sat down and chatted with an old friend, but alas, war is a strict mistress.      This game is designed to be massively multi-player but guys like me can play off-line and have a good time. Either way, you a...

    Hey, everyone. Today I want to stand up for the underdogs. It has become apparent to me that zombies are the new societal scapegoats. If we have a bad day, we go home and slay multitudes of zombies. If someone cuts us off in traffic or is rude to us in a store, we kill zombies. It seems that zombies are a crutch for people to channel their hatred and violence. I intend to sponsor a major psychological study concerning this phenomenon. For instance, has violence gone down in areas where people play a lot of zombie games? Is zombie-killing the real key to world peace? Can all the nations of the world band together and develop a huge video game? A game that all peoples of the world can play and kill zombies until we can all, at last, live in peace and love? A frustration-destroying genocide of the undead which will, at last, purge us of our barbaric lusts?     Oh sure, they are ugly. They are undead and ...dead. They drool and they smell bad. They wear shabby ...

Hey, everyone. I had the occasion to be out late tonight. I was driving North and passed a south-bound train as the tracks happened to be next to the highway. It was a pretty night, 75 degrees and a big, bright moon. I had my roof open and my driver's window down. I could hear the click clack of the train on the track and the creaking of the box cars as they wobbled. There must have been a couple of miles of empty box cars, some with their doors open. As I looked over at the silent box cars, peering idly into their deeply shadowed interiors, I felt a chill in my inmost being. The creeps, as they called it when I was a kid. "What an odd thing to feel!" I said out loud. I couldn't see any reason for it, really. I never was one to ride the rails. I hitch-hiked when I was young, all over the United States, but I was not a hobo. As I watched the cars rattle by I wondered what dark deed might be even then taking place inside one of them. What a scary place to be if you w...

    Hey, everyone. This is the road I live on. In the terminology of the South, it would just be called a country road. Not much different than a thousand others. Flat roads and straight roads are about as common as giraffes around here. Country roads are handy for a lot of things. Things as simple as berry picking and other things that are a bit more sinister.     I remember one night when I was coming home from work in the wee hours. It was probably about 3 o'clock in the morning. I was coming up a steep place on the road to the top of the mountain. About half way up I came around a curve and there was a car, stopped in the middle of the road, about 50 feet ahead of me. I often stop to help people but I could see this guy's exhaust (winter) and I had that feeling on the back of my neck. You know, that feeling that you get if you have been raised on the street and you know something is wrong in a situation.      Not to be melodramatic but ...

     I heard an odd story, years ago. A young guy goes to see a girl at her home in the country. They're both young, early teens, so it's a chaperon thing, sitting on the porch swing at mom's house. Mom and daughter go in to fix some refreshments while the teenage boy sits on the porch. He notices an old man at the deserted house just down the road. The old dude has on bib overalls with one side unfastened. He is wearing a straw hat. The old guy disappears around the back of the house.     When the mom and her daughter come back out, the boy mentions seeing someone at the house next door. The mom shakes her head.     "You must be mistaken, honey. That's my folks' place. No one lives there anymore."     The young man replies, "The old man had on a straw hat and wore bib overalls with one snap undone and dropped down."      Both of the females' faces turned completely white. The mom said that the boy ...

    Hey, everyone. It rained here yesterday, which we desperately needed. Since the ground was wet I felt that I could risk a fire in the burn pit in my back yard. The pit is made of concrete and mountain stone but is open on one side. It helps prevent sparks from catching the woods on fire. In this area your carelessness could have far-reaching effects.     I got a nice fire going before dark and was sitting in a lawn chair watching the flames as the sun went down. My wife was at work so I was alone. I had some champagne and then switched over to beer which was not smart. Anyway, I was listening to my I-Pod and keeping an eagle eye out for cougars. Other than the immediate circle of firelight there was that awesome darkness peculiar to the woods. There was a rumble of thunder to the north and just a bit of a cool breeze, which was nice.     I had my I-Pod on shuffle and a song from the sixties came on. The song is titled Laurie, Strange Th...

I was driving home from work late one night in Kansas. It was about three o'clock and I'd had a rough day. The area was remote, almost fifteen miles from the nearest town. There were homes here and there and a few farms.     In the glare of my headlights I saw a woman walking along the road. Thinking that perhaps her husband had driven her from her home or she was in trouble of some description, I stopped beside her and asked if I could be of service. She said no thanks. I asked if she would like a ride somewhere and she said okay and climbed in. She remarked that she was just out for a walk on a hot summer night and I agreed that it was a pleasant night to be out.      We had probably only gone a mile before she said, "Let me out at the white sign up ahead." She got out at the sign and said thanks. I drove on home meditating on the encounter and wondering about it as any writer would.     The next day on my way to work I drove by the whit...