Alex Carrick’s Blog

Frank had learned how to control his dreams. He’d never experienced nightmares before. That’s why the past several months were so disturbing for him.   His power over dreams first came when he was a little boy. He saw a magazine photo of Michelangelo’s famous scene on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome’s Vatican. […]

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A spate of public rudeness lately has raised the question of how society has come to this sorry pass. Kanye West in the world of hip hop, Serena Williams in tennis and Joe Wilson in Washington’s political hot house all stepped over the traditional bounds of civility in the past week. What are the trends that […]

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In an earlier blog entry, I introduced the possibility of celebrities, when their careers end or hit a dry spell, finding employment as “greeters” at Wal-Mart. Some of them would have rather obvious opening lines when you walk through the doors to go shopping.

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Today, I’ll continue with a discussion about the perils of watching movies at home with the children. I’ll cover the embarrassment of violence, pornography and bad language.   As for violence, Donna and I haven’t wanted our kids to be over-protected, so we’re pretty liberal in our viewing habits. Besides, you can’t get away from […]

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There are few things in life much more fun than taking the kids to a movie in an actual theatre. You load up on popcorn, Pepsi and Twizzlers; the lights go down; the sound starts to reverberate; and the fun begins. You look over and your youngest ones are looking up at the screen, wide-eyed […]

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My wife, Donna, writes crime novels, five of them so far. It’s hard to get published these days, for a variety of reasons, and Donna is self-publishing.   She has an Internet site, but also knows how important it is to network. As part of this effort, she attends functions of Sisters in Crime and […]

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The one spectator sport I am still really interested in is the NFL on television and I have to admit it may not be for the best of reasons.

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In the movie, The French Connection, the Gene Hackman character, “Popeye” Doyle, asks one of the drug- dealing suspects if he is still “picking his toes in Poughkeepsie?” He knew one of the great secrets of comedy. The letter “p” is the funniest letter of the alphabet.

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There are quite a number of reasons it might be “neat” to be the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Here, arranged in no particular order, are the Top 10.   (1) Guv’nor just sounds so great and fits in with this nation’s British heritage.   (2) You always win at Monopoly cause you can just print […]

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Over the weekend, I had some fun imagining how certain celebrities and politicians would seem to be ideally suited for second careers, in their golden years, as “greeters” at Wal-Mart. Try to imagine being met by these people and these words on your way into the store.

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