Do you ever feel like you have emerged better for reading a book?

2. Enter the link to your post in the linky list below (enter your Blog Name and the direct link to your post answering this week’s question. Failure to do so will result in removal of your link).


3. Visit other blogs in the list and comment on their posts. Try to spend some time on the blogs reading other posts and possible become a new follower.  The purpose of the hop is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
  

My Answer:

Yes. I had a high school teacher tell me that I would learn more from reading on my own than I would every learn from just sitting in a classroom.

Not Rated; 184 minutes; Buy Link

I'm back!!!!!

Well, I actually didn't go anywhere at all! I've just been procrastinating once again, which explains why my review for the Hammer Films Double Feature: Maniac & Die! Die! My Darling! is so late. Originally, I meant to have it written and posted around the same time I had reviewed the Hammer Films Double Feature: Never Take Candy From a Stranger and Scream of Fear! (Read my review here!).

While Hammer Film Production has been around since 1938, the film company didn't become famous until it started releasing horror flicks. The birth of "Hammer Horror" began with the first film in The Quatermass Experiment trilogy in 1955. The horror genre was very successful for Hammer until the 1970s, when their Gothic-style stories started to fade with moviegoers. Their last horror film was To the Devil... a Daughter, which was released in 1976. The production company seemed to dead until it was revamped in 2007. Since then, the company has returned to their horror roots with several feature films, including The Woman in Black and its sequel The Woman in Black: Angel of Death.

For the last few years, Mill Creek Entertainment has been releasing several of the Hammer horror films to DVD and Blu-ray. Most recently, they released Hammer Films Double Feature: Maniac & Die! Die! My Darling! to Blu-ray.

Directed by Michael Carreras, Maniac is a 1963 British-French psychological-thriller that centers on Jeff Farrell (played by Kerwin Mathews), an American artist who finds himself alone in France after breaking up with his girlfriend. With nowhere to go, he ends up renting a room above a bar owned by Eve Beynat (played by Nadia Gray) and her stepdaughter, Annette (played by Liliane Brousse). Despite an age difference, Jeff falls for Eve, who convinces him to help her husband escape an asylum. Unfortunately, Jeff finds out that things aren't always as they seem to be.


Directed by Silvio Narizzano, Die! Die! My Darling! (also known as Frantic) is a 1965 British horror-thriller that centers on Patricia Carrol (played by Stefanie Powers), an American woman who is planning on marrying her boyfriend Alan (played by Maurice Kaufmann) in London. However, before she can get married, she needs to make a visit to her deceased fiancé Stephen's mother in Mrs. Trefoile (played by Tallulah Bankhead), who lives in a secluded house near a small English village. Upon arriving, Patricia quickly learns that Mrs. Trefoile is extremely religious and doesn't allow any modern technology in her home. Plus, the woman blames Patricia for her son's death. With the help of her servants, the old woman holds Patricia hostage in the attempt to cleanse her soul!

One of my most guiltiest pleasures of lately is chocolate! And if I'm correct, I do believe many other people have the same love for chocolates as I do.

I haven't always been in "love" with chocolates. I wasn't that big on candy until I recently found my sweet tooth, which isn't exactly a great thing to find when you're trying to lose weight. Nevertheless, I still let myself devour in chocolate candies, cookies, and ice cream. Even my favorite coffee flavor is "mocha," which of course has chocolate in it!

Recently, I read about the new "Craft Chocolate" crave, which has been extremely popular in UK for the past decade.

What is Craft Chocolate?

Well, it's similar to the Craft Beer and Craft Coffee fads. Smaller startup business are opening up "Craft Chocolate" stores, where they the sell chocolates that have been made from the best and finest ingredients. Basically, it turns the processing of creating chocolate into an art form. The Chocolatiers (a.k.a - the people who make the chocolate) make sure they utilize the natural flavor of the cocoa beans, which will give the best chocolatey taste. A few of the biggest Chocolatiers in the Craft Chocolate UK are: Pump St Chocolate, Duffy’s, Solkiki, Land, and the Seaforth Chocolate Co..

If you don't live in the UK (like me), you don't have to worry, as you there are many places online where you can buy craft chocolate bars.

Yes, my love for chocolate is why I can't lose weight, but chocolate is great to snack on when I'm working on writing projects in the early morning hours or late at night. I can't explain it, but chocolate has a way of lifting the fog from my mind and giving the me ability to concentrate on whatever I'm currently working on.

One of my many talents (if you can call them that) is baking! Yes, I'm a guy who knows how go bake cookies, brownies, cakes, and pies.

Guess what are my favorite ingredient to use!

14 hours 26 minutes; $19.98;  Buy Link

It's Saturday morning, but it's nowhere near the Saturday mornings that I experienced during my childhood. I remember getting up bright & early, fixing a bowl of a cereal, and turning on the old television set, so I could watch my favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Now thanks to the Children's Television Act, networks have long since abandoned animated programming in exchange for local news. Yes, many cable channels still air cartoons, but it's just not the same as it was in 1980s and the early 1990s.

One my favorite animated series is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which ran for 10 seasons. The series popularity (as well as the Playmates toyline) started to decline in the early 1990s; just around the time a ripoff of sorts arrived - Street Sharks!

Mattel released a line of mutant sharks action figures in 1994, which was mostly likely inspired by the success of TMNT. Of course to help sell the toys, a cartoon series was created! Produced by DIC Entertainment, the series aired from 1994 to 1997, lasting three seasons with a total of 40 episodes.

The premise of the series centered around two scientist, Dr. Robert Bolton and Dr. Luther Paradigm, who created a "gene-slammer" machine which can successfully mix aquatic creatures DNA with human DNA, creating anthropomorphic hybrids. Dr. Paradigm is mad and plans on using the machine to create his own species. He transforms Dr. Bolton into a creature, who escapes. Later, Dr Luther Paradigm lures Dr. Bolton's sons (John, Bobby, Coop, and Clint) into his lair and splices their DNA with sharks.

To make a long story short, John, Bobby, Coop, and Clint become mutant sharks. Most people would be freaked out by this, but they take it pretty well. Actually, they enjoy being mutants. John becomes Ripster, Bobby becomes Streex, Coop becomes Big Slammu, and Clint becomes Jab. Along with their pals Lena Mack and Bends, the brothers set out to stop Dr. Paradigm's (who becomes a
piranha mutant) evil plans.


A short-lived comic series from Archie Comics debuted in 1996. An animated spinoff,  Extreme Dinosaurs, debuted in 1997 for one season of 52 episodes.

Mill Creek Entertainment released the entire Street Shark series on DVD in 2013, but is now out-of-print. Not to worry, as they re-released "The Complete Series" early this year and for the very first time, the series is also available on Digital through the Mill Creek Entertainment website. A free digital code is included with the three-disc DVD set.

Have you ever thought of writing a respectful, but angry letter to an author to ask them WHY they killed off one of your favorite characters in a novel?

2. Enter the link to your post in the linky list below (enter your Blog Name and the direct link to your post answering this week’s question. Failure to do so will result in removal of your link).


3. Visit other blogs in the list and comment on their posts. Try to spend some time on the blogs reading other posts and possible become a new follower.  The purpose of the hop is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
  

My Answer:

I don't believe I have had ever had those thoughts after a book character. I just accept the death and continue reading.

Disney; TV-PG; 95 minutes; Walmart

Being released today to DVD from Disney Home Entertainment is the Disney Channel Original Movie ZOMBIES. The DVD comes with FREE Glow-In-The-Dark Tattoos.

Directed & produced by Paul Hoen (Camp Rock 2), the film stars Milo Manheim, Meg Donnelly (ABC's American Housewife), Trevor Tordjman, Kylee Russell, Carla Jeffery, Kingston Foster, and James Godfrey.

ZOMBIES is set in the small community of Seabrook, where fifty years ago a lime soda plant explosion turned half of the population into zombies. Those who weren't infected built a wall to keep the zombies out and forcing them to live in their own community called Zombietown. Fast forward to the present, the government requires all zombies to wear "Z-Band" bracelets that sends  electromagnetic pulses to keep zombies from craving brains.

The film centers on Addison, a teenager who's excited to be starting a brand new year of school, as she's going to be trying out for the Seabrook High cheerleader team, which is lead by her cousin Bucky. Addison isn't exactly normal, as she actually has white hair, which was probably passed down to her from her grandfather who was bitten by a zombie, but her parents make her wear a blonde wig.

The first day of school also marks the very first time the high school will be allowing zombie teenagers to attend classes. Zed, Eliza, and Bonzo, along with a handful of other zombie teenagers, were excited about starting school at Seabrook High; well, that is until they actually arrived there. Ordered by the principal, all of the zombie students must attend classes in the basement. Also, zombies aren't allowed to join school activities, including sports. Now, this is a major disappointment for Zed because he was wanting to tryout for the Mighty Shrimp football team.

After the "zombie alarm" is accidentally set off, Addison bumps into Zed inside a "zombie bunker," and the two quickly begin a friendship. Later, Zed convinces the principal and the football coach into letting him join the team. Thanks to Eliza's help by hacking his "Z-Band" to make him more aggressive, Zed leads the team to several victories.

Despite becoming the school's football star, Bucky and a few other cheerleaders are determined to get  Zed and the rest of the zombie students kicked out of school.

Bonus Features include:

• Bloopers - Laugh out loud at the Cast of ZOMBIES in this compilation of the funniest bloopers and outtakes from the making of the film.

• Deleted Scenes
• It’s a Cheer-tastrope 
• New Jacket, New Name

• Audition Footage 
• Milo Manheim Audition
• Meg Donnelly Audition

• Zombies Survival Guide To High School - This piece uses a visual motif of a Zombie Survival Guide, with styled infographics and hosted by the talent.  We go down the list of some of the most important survival tips for Zombies and humans on how to get along and make the best of high school. 

• Dance Tutorial - Join Meg Donnelly (Addison), Kylee Russell (Eliza) and ZOMBIES Choreographer, Christopher Scott, as they show you how to dance along to the ‘BAMM” Music Video.

• Music Videos 
• Music Video - "BAMM"
• Lyric Video - "BAMM"
  

• Trailers

How do you organize your books for review? Does it work for you or have you had to change it?

2. Enter the link to your post in the linky list below (enter your Blog Name and the direct link to your post answering this week’s question. Failure to do so will result in removal of your link).


3. Visit other blogs in the list and comment on their posts. Try to spend some time on the blogs reading other posts and possible become a new follower.  The purpose of the hop is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
  

My Answer:

They're not organized at all. The books are just piled up on my desk.

Amazon

When did you become interested in storytelling?

Years ago, I was working on a book of interviews. People answered questions eagerly but when I came to edit the transcripts it became clear that, although they were telling a story, it was buried in what they said. When we talk, we don’t formulate a beginning, a middle, and an end. We start with what we feel is the most important point and then usually we go to the end and then backtrack to fill in details and often end with the beginning. But no matter how we tell it, it’s all stories. This experience gave me a crash course in shaping narrative.

Stories are how we understand ourselves and everything around us. People who are unable to form a narrative cannot function in our world. In the branch of psychotherapy called narrative therapy, therapists found that, in dealing with people who had been through terrible ordeals including war, torture, or great loss, the patient who could form a narrative, who could tell a story about what happened and why it happened, might recover and go on. Those who couldn’t do that remained in a state of disfunction.

Ursula Le Guin said, “Stories held in common make and remake the world we inhabit. The story we agree to tell about what a child is or who the bad guys are or what a woman wants will shape our thinking and our actions, whether we call that story a myth or a movie or a speech in Congress.”

I believe this to be true.

What was your first book/story published?

When I was 11 years old, a Bay Area newspaper held a contest for kids to find the best essay about, you guessed it, “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.” Mine was one of the three winners and our essays were published in the paper. Does that count?

What inspired you to write Threshold?

A few years ago I was researching a project on the environment and I read through many of the important nonfiction books on the subject of climate change and related problems mounting in the natural world. It’s heavy stuff and it occurred to me that approaching these issues from another angle, in an imaginative and entertaining manner, could be a good idea. I wanted to write something … different. As I worked on Threshold, it became differenter and differenter. Then all these animals showed up. To tell the truth, it got out of my control. The characters wrote this. I was an innocent bystander.

What character in Threshold is the most/least like you, and in what ways?

I would like to be more like Raoul, a very transgressive little fellow, but I’m afraid I’m more a goodie two-shoes like the main character, Banshooo.

What is your favorite part in Threshold?

The scenes with the crazy-wisdom master, Sid. He really tells us what we need to know.

What was the hardest part to write?

Several characters die. I liked them and didn’t want them to go but that’s the way of it, in stories, in life, in the natural world.

What would your ideal career be, if you couldn't be an author?

Well actually, I’d like to be King of the World. I’m sure I would do a good job. No, really. Seriously. Don’t you think you could make things better if you were able to decree all those things you know would help. In lieu of that, I write. It’s a way to get your hopes, dreams, ideas, fears, all of it out there.

Do you read reviews of your books? If so, do you pay any attention to them, or let them influence your writing?