Recipe: My Mom's Christmas Cookies

3 3/4 cups sifted flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar (sifted and packed)
1 egg

Mix and sift flour (does anyone still sift flour?) baking powder, & spices. Cream butter, add sugar gradually & cream until fluffy, add egg and mix. Add sifted dry ingredients gradually and mix. Chill in refrigerator.

Roll out about 1/8 inch thick and cut with assorted cookie cutters. Bake on ungreased baking sheets in preheated 350 degree (Fahrenheit) oven for about 12 minutes. Store in covered container.

Next, make the frosting:
1/2 stick of butter or margarine
1 pkg. powdered sugar (2 or 3 cups)
1 tsp vanilla
milk to mix to right consistency
food coloring if desired

Frost the cooled cookies with the frosting and decorate with sprinkles of various kinds. Get the family together to help with the cookie decorating, and the person who does the best Star Trek uniform for the gingerbread man wins a prize.

These cookies are a family tradition in my family--- perhaps because they taste like traditional German Spekulatius cookies. But the recipe comes from the Milwaukee Gas Light Co. cookbook of 1958. (My mom's baking some right now--- so must end this post and snag a freshly baked cookie....)

Barack Obama may have Asperger's Syndrome

Background sounds from the movie 'Freaks'*: the sideshow performers chanting 'One of us! One of us! One of us!

Today I was thinking about the remarks Obama recently made about his accomplishments in office, and it occurred to me that if Obama, like me, had Asperger's Syndrome, that might put the story in a more sympathetic light.

So I googled 'Obama' and 'Aspergers' and came up with this, (among many other hits):

Does President Obama have Asperger's Syndrome

Obama is not the only US president who might have had Aspergers. Thomas Jefferson is also suspected of being an Aspie. ***One of us! One of us! One of us!***

Obama, of course, has never been officially diagnosed. If he suspects he might have Aspergers he's probably going out of his way not to be diagnosed, and I defend his right to do so. Aspergers is very stigmatizing. One person I told then presumed I was mentally retarded to the point of not being able to sign my own name. (Actually, my IQ is high enough to join the 'genius' organization Mensa--- which is not unheard of among folks with Asperger's syndrome.)

While I still renounce President Obama and all his evil works and ways, this possibility has reminded me that we must not allow our dislike of someone's policies or ideology translate into attacking or mocking that person's personal quirks, which may be caused by something that person cannot help. Besides, why make fun of Obama's social ineptness when we can make fun of his policies?

*Freaks: a 1932 movie featuring real sideshow performers--- pinheads, conjoined twins, little people--- which was rather notorious in its day. I mention it because I rather identify with the sideshow performers in the movie--- though I don't condone what they did to Cleopatra, that was harsh...

Free Ebook: Cat and Mouse by Ralph Williams

Cat and Mouse is a 1959 published sci-fi short story, 11,344 words / 38 pages in length. The main character is a canny old Alaskan trapper, Ed Brown who arrives at his remote cabin for a season of work only to discover a mysterious gate into another world.

As it turns out, there is a dangerous life form on the other side of the gate. The story hinges on the conflict between this deadly life form and Ed. Ed does not know it, but the guardian of the world on which the dangerous life form resides has opened the gate specifically because there is something on Ed's world that can put paid to the menace.

The questions that keep us on the edge of our seat for this story are these: What is it that the guardian had in mind, and was he right that it could deal with the deadly creature?

The author of the work was a native Alaskan, so he knew his setting. This short story was nominated for a Hugo award.

I find that not only is that is this a great adventure yarn, it is also a suitable read for Christians of all ages. There is no sinful content or ideological agenda you need to worry about if your kids want to read it.

It's available in many ebook formats and can be read on your Kindle, Palm Pilot or your home computer. Download now--- resistance is futile!

Cat and Mouse by Ralph Williams - free at Manybook.net

My favorite Reality TV show is 'Zombie Death Extreme'

My normal opinion of reality TV is that all those involved in a reality show should be shot out of cannons or set on fire. Or at least attacked by brain-eating zombies. But in the reality show 'Zombie Death Extreme' the contestants at least are attacked by zombies as a normal thing, it's part of the show. Here's the show's promo.



And here's the web site: Zombie Death Extreme Official Site

The only problem with this great show is that it's fictional. I mean, even more than other reality TV shows. It's a plot device in the novel Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator by Karina Fabian. Neeta Lyffe, a licensed zombie exterminator, gets sued when a zombie she sets on fire stumbles on to a lawyer's porch. Although Neeta saved the lawyer's life the fire does some property damage and Neeta's forced to go to the extreme of hosting a reality TV show about zombie extermination to pay the bills.

The novel, which I read in its very reasonably priced Kindle edition, was not only amusing and entertaining, but one that is worth re-reading. And there is a sequel in the works-- there is an interview with Karina Fabian at 'Under the Hat', where you can learn more.

For those concerned about the content of their fiction, Neeta Lyffe lacks explicit sex, bad language other than a couple of stray f-bombs, and anti-Christian/anti-Catholic rants. All these things may have a bit to do with the fact that the author is a Christian (Catholic variety) who lives her faith enough to have written a book on it. Neeta Lyffe is not overtly 'Christian fiction', there are no appeals to accept Christ or Bible prophecy sermons which foreshadow the next action in the story. (That's too bad, I kind of like it, it pisses all the right people off. Or should that be 'all the LEFT people'?)

My enjoyment of Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator has lead me to one of my worst book purchases ever--- 'Battle of the Network Zombies' by Mark Henry. I thought it would be OK--- there was a quote from Patricia Briggs on the cover. But 'Network Zombies' features a main character who is enough of a KKK-like hater to be musing about her hate-objects when it is not relevant to the scene at hand. Since her hate-objects are not black people or Jews, but Catholics, the book managed to get published anyway. But if scene of anti-Catholic hate isn't enough to carry a whole book for you, avoid this one. The smut scenes--- excuse me, sex scenes--- are just plain vile and nasty, as compared with the more high-minded smut scenes in the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris.

The plot, to the extent 'Battle of the Network Zombies' has one, is as tired as an ageing zombie, and it was actually a relief when the anti-Catholic hate musings popped into the mind of the nasty narrator so I had an excuse to quit reading this puppy. All things considered, I wish I hadn't spend the time and money on this book. I should have re-read 'Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator' instead.

Karina Fabian: Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator (Amazon.com)
Mark Henry: Battle of the Network Zombies (Amazon.bom)

So: what do you think of Zombie Death Extreme and other elements of Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator? Have you read Battle of the Network Zombies? If so, what was your opinion? And are there any other zombie lit books that ought to be on my must-read list (since I'm considering writing a zombie-war book/novella called Zekwars)?

Israel to Germany: Still mad at you for the Holocaust thing....

Recent headline at The Blaze: Germany to Israel: Stop building settlements.

Are the Germans nuts? Do they really think the world has forgiven and forgotten the Holocaust? They would have been wiser to leave it to other Israel-hating nations to complain about Jews building homes in their ancestral homeland. Since after all the Israelis have a quick and easy comeback to criticism from Germany.

Are you really cut out to be a writer? Some common symptoms

Ever encountered a would-be writer that was plainly not cut out to be a writer? There are the ones who've seen a report on TV about the advances paid to a top best-selling author and decide writing is easy money since you do it sitting down, and so they sit down at the keyboard and bang out something for those fools with nothing better to do with their time but read books.

There are also those who don't have the unrealistic money motive, but who think being an author would raise their status, or make them cool, or whatever. Some of these even read books, if only Harlequin romances. But what they write tends to sound like a rehash of their latest fight with their boyfriend or boss. Or else it's something that sounds like pre-teen fan fiction all about getting Harry Potter or Captain Kirk to notice a character who is suspiciously like the author.

Sometimes I think Nanowrimo brings these hopeless non-writers out of the woodwork. The premise of Nano is that anyone can write a novel. The truth is that while most people can bat out enough words or attempted words to meet the word count goal, the result may not be recognizable as a novel. And even if it turns out to be recognizably novel-ish, it may not be anything that another human being would ever care to read.

This brings out some real fears in those of us who dream of being real writers--- even those who've met with some success. It's not that these attempted writers are clogging up the publishers' slush piles or flooding the self-publishing market. It's the fear 'What if I'm one of them? What if I am in denial about the quality of my writing? What if everyone who's said something nice about my work just pities me?'

How can you tell if you are a writer-with-potential rather than a hopeless non-writer? Here are a list of symptoms that can help distinguish the real-writer from the writing-attempting non-writer:

Symptom 1: Lifelong history of making up stories One of my childhood memories involves watching a favorite television program in the afternoon--- Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Batman, Hogan's Heroes--- and then going out of the house, taking a walk, and making up stories based on the television show I'd just watched. I made up stories in my head all the time. Sometimes my real-life environment showed up in the stories, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes I did mash-ups--- a number of Star Trek characters were thrown back into time to visit Stalag 13, the prisoner-of-war camp in Hogan's Heroes. This mental fiction didn't always follow the rules for story-telling--- I'd jump around from interesting bit to interesting bit, go backwards in the story, or replay the best bits endlessly. And it was heavy on non-original characters from television or books. But it was a seed for the more original stories I make up as an adult. (My current head-story involves fighting zombies in Mexico.)

Symptom 2: Compulsive reading If you have nothing else handy to read in the morning, do you read breakfast cereal boxes? Bookcase assembly instructions from an already assembled bookcase? A 2006 goat artificial insemination catalog? The fact is, people with the potential to be writers read, all the time. They read more than one category of book, and when nothing better is available they read whatever is to hand. If you have a history of compulsive reading dating back to childhood, if you read a great deal to this day, that's a sign of writing potential.

Sympton 3: Language awareness You don't have to have had top marks in English grammar class to be a writer. But writers do have or develop language awareness--- an interest in words, their meanings and spelling, their use in comprehensible English sentences.... When you were in grade school, did you ever read the dictionary for fun? Did you ever learn to spell interesting words that weren't going to be on any test? And today, what happens when you encounter an unfamiliar word in your reading? Are you able to cope, or do you put the book down. Not all writers are the kind of people who win spelling bees and know how to diagram sentences with confidence. But the writer's tool kit is full of words and grammar and spelling patterns. If you don't know the tools, aren't interested in them, and aren't willing to learn about them, you won't be able to function as a writer.

Symptom 4: Detachment If you were popular in high school and part of the social whirl, you probably didn't observe things very well. You were too much a part of things to be objective about them. Someone who wasn't so popular, who was often an observer rather than a participant, could probably tell you a lot of things about that part of your life that you were too busy to notice. Observation is an essential skill for a writer, and accurate observation requires you to be a bit detached from the subject. This doesn't mean you have to be a lifelong social outcast (though it helps). You just have to be able to not always be at the center of things, the focus of everyone's attention.

So--- how many symptoms do YOU have? Are there any symptoms that ought to have made the list but didn't?

Commodities Distribution Day

If you are in poverty in the state of Michigan, the commodities distribution program may be the first food aid you will get. But this December's distribution was a little lighter on groceries than the last one, three months ago.

The commodities program is good because it doesn't require the intimidating cart-load of documentation that many are unable to quickly produce. You just sign a sheet--- giving your name and address--- that you verify you meet the income requirements.

It helps to show up early on distribution day, since it is first come, first served, and if you are in need you don't want to miss out. At the hour when the distribution opened at the Senior Citizen Center in Daggett, Michigan, there was already a line out the building door.

Most of the people on line were in the eighty-plus age group. Enough are infirm each month that strong young people are always on hand to carry out the groceries.

The food is given out in bags and boxes, and each household receives the same items. Usually there are three to four bags/boxes of food. This time there were only two bags--- harsh news to the larger families since the distributions are only every three months.

This is the December list of what was in the bags:

1 package spaghetti noodles (2 lb.)
2 cans tomato sauce (sweetened, 15 0z.)
2 cans sweet peas (sweetened, 15 oz)
4 cans pears in light syrup
i bag short-grain rice (2 lb)
1 bottle grape juice, unsweetened (1/2 gallon)
1 quart 1% milk, ultra-pasteurized (can be stored unrefrigerated)
4 cans sweet corn (sweetened, 15 oz.)
1 lb. frozen ground beef

In previous months there have been packages of oatmeal, cold cereal, peanut butter, dried beans, frozen pork patties, canned meat and other items. There have also been unsweetened canned vegetables, and whole grain rotini noodles. You just never know what you might get on commodities day. It's an interesting variety. And I've never yet seen them give out packages of hamburger helper, which seems to be what local food pantries want most, even though one must purchase both hamburger and milk to make it (and the taste is such that I'd hate to waste good hamburger on it).

It must be hard for the people at the head of the program to decide what foods to include. The people who receive it might be elderly and single, or might be a growing young family. And they have different levels of knowledge on how to prepare home-cooked food, and differences in the number of working kitchen appliances they have--- some, for example, may have to cook on a hot plate, or have a tiny refrigerator/freezer or none at all.....

Many of the people in the line were also picking up food for a friend too ill or weak to come themselves. There was conversation in line about what to do with food items one was unable to eat--- many recommended giving it to the local food bank if one wasn't able to give it to a friend in need who could eat it.

People also seemed resigned that sooner or later the commodities program will fall victim to budget cuts. It's a pity they can't cut money somewhere else, like in salaries for state government officials. After some experience with the mountains of red tape involved in most government programs, which confuses even me, I wonder how many people just can't manage to jump through the right hoops to get on food stamps. For the commodities program, all you need to do is show up and fill out the form--- which the volunteers will help you do if you have difficulty.

Pan Demonium, part 1

I sat hunched over my computer keyboard. There was a demon chained to my ankle. It's hard to write with a demon chained to your ankle.

I keyed fast, just to get it over with. The stuff I was writing was crap. I mean literal crap, as in the contents of an outhouse hitting the you-know-what. They like a little gross-out in the fiction, and I can gross with the best.

The demon yanked at my leg. “Quit that.” I don't even look at the thing when I talk to it. The effect of familiarity. You know what they say. Familiarity breeds.

I finished the crap scene and went on to do an autopsy, a gang rape, a case of diarrhea.... All in a day's work. I saved the document to a crystal which I took out of the machine.

The doorbell rang. I ignored it. The messenger girl came in anyway. “Did you finish the work for the Cruz mystery?” the girl asked me.

I grunted for yes and threw her the crystal. She caught it and handed me another. “The latest Tegan Carroll romance novel,” she told me. “They want five explicit sex scenes, two excrements, three tortures and a disembowelment.”

What, no brains splattered on walls? What kind of romance novel was this? I took the crystal without subjecting the girl to my opinion.

The girl looked at the demon, which dug its claws into my leg hard enough to make me yelp. “Isn't it hard to write with that thing chained to your leg?”

“It would be a hell of a lot harder to write with this thing not chained to my leg. They can get into stuff even the cat can't reach.” I heard a thump-thump coming from behind the couch. The cat. Braver than usual. He usually hid when visitors arrived.

The girl looked at the demon again, wrinkled her nose. “It smells like matches.” She left.

I got to work on the new project. Wished I had a match. Might be nice to see if a computer crystal could be set on fire.

c 2007-2011 Nissa Annakindt

Who is the narrator? Why does he, she or it have a demon chained to his, her or its ankle? Do the cat and the demon get along? Is the demon symbolic of something or is the author just being weird? WARNING: any response may cause Pan Demonium part 2 to be written and posted.

How I Joined Tencent Weibo, China's Facebook/Twitter

Step 1: Went to the Tencent Weibo home page, English version.

Step 2: Discovered that I needed a QQ account to log in to Tencent Weibo.

Step 3: Went to QQ homepage. There, discovered I needed to go to their English version. I clicked on the 'sign up' button on the right and followed directions.

Step 4: Went back to Tencent Weibo and logged in. Tried to create an account. Found that it seemed to want me to give a real name in Chinese characters.

Step 5: Searched for site to put my name in Chinese. Found lots. Most did not include a cut-and-paste version of the Chinese name. Found one that did. It did not have the name 'Nissa' but did have 'Nessa'. My Chinese name is: 内萨

Step 6: I put 内萨 as my real name. An account was created. http://t.qq.com/nissa_katoj If you start a Tencent Weibo account of your own, you can be my friend (or 'follower').

The Dust Mouse

Once there was a little girl named Demetra who never mopped under her bed. Before long, the space under her bed was full of dust. Little bits of dust clumped together into dust lumps. The dust lumps clumped together into dust balls. Finally, from the biggest dust ball, a dust mouse was born. It was about the size and color of a real mouse, but it looked fuzzier and dustier.

As soon as the dust mouse was born, she was hungry. Luckily, dust mice eat dust, and there was plenty of that under the bed. The dust mouse ate dust and grew bigger and bigger. She got as big as a cat--- she knew because sometimes Demetra's cat came under the bed to play with her. Before long, the dust mouse had eaten all the dust, and she didn't fit under Demetra's bed any more. She was too big.

My Nano novel isn't failing badly enough.... yet

My nano novel Bakoun has been stalled for some time, as readers can see from my lack-of-progress meter. But that level of failure isn't good enough. If I'm going to fail, I want to do a good job of it! So I have the following plans:

1. Everything I have written so far is to be junked. Yes, there is a character or two I can keep--- well, one character, anyway. But all the actual word count is to be zeroed.

2. I'm changing the time in which the story is set. Well, actually, the story starts in the Victorian era and then goes to 1984, 1994, 2004 and so on until the actual near-future invasion starts. I'm thinking of setting the whole thing in the Victorian and or Edwardian era.

3. The setting gives me the chance to go all steampunky. Though anything I write could never be true steampunk. According to my sources (random internet sites) steampunk has to be correctly punk by being in rebellion against a prescribed list of things. I never rebel against the correct things in the correct manner.

4. My new plans require me to write up a brief timeline of Esperanto history, and of the eugenics/euthanasia movement. There are lots of cool quotes about the need for 'lethal chambers' which I can work in.

5. Another research requirement: I must throw together an outline of an alien invasion novel (Worldwar: In the Balance) so that I can see how a real writer handles a global story with multiple groups of characters, including alien ones.

6. The Korean characters I was planning to introduce will now be living in the American West, and running a Chinese restaurant (which serves Korean food, since Americans of the time can't tell the difference.)

7. There will be a boy named Alf from Linz, Austria who might be Hitler. There is a man who may be a time traveler who wants to kill him.

8. There will be robots. Big ones. And steampunky computers. Perhaps the result of alien technology being leaked? Perhaps also a steampunky 'blood-reader' machine that scans DNA?

9. Given these plans, by the end of NaNoWriMo, my word count should be around zero. Is it too early to think about National Novel Finishing Month???

Can you give a baby shower for a pregnant cat, part deux

Chachamaru, stolen kittens Jess and Tess, son Joel

I blogged about my cat Chachamaru several times before. The first one was entitled 'Can you give a baby shower for a pregnant cat?'

Today I brought Chachamaru in the house to spend the day with lonely house-kittens Kitten Jack, Gwen and Myfanwy. I'd had to remove the kittens' foster mother/thief Psychokitty as Psychokitty has health problems that her stolen babies don't need to deal with.

As I carried Chachamaru into the house, I noticed that she's pregnant. This is NOT okay! Outdoor cats are NOT supposed to get pregnant at this time of year!

I guess Chachamaru thinks she's owed some kittens because she had a litter of six this spring with no survivors. But she stole Sarah's 3 week old kittens Jess and Tess, and I thought she was fine with it. (Sarah's also the real mom of kittens Kitten Jack, Gwen, Myfanwy, and their brother Ianto, who passed away.)

Chachamaru must have been listening at the doors to those EWTN shows that talk about being open to life. I've tried to explain that this doesn't apply to unwed cats, but she doesn't buy it.

Alien invaders as a parasitic class

One thing we humans like to do when we are feeling uncharitable is to cast some group of people that we are NOT a part of in the role of a parasite class. It can be the parasitic rich people or the parasitic poor people or the parasitic telephone sanitizers. It's better to keep this as just talk because when you try to take action based on this viewpoint, you will end up like the old Soviet Union who essentially got rid of their parasitic class of telephone sanitizers and then died from a disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

But the idea of alien invaders as a parasitic class on the backs of the human race is quite a useful one. It certainly provides a possible motive for an alien race to go to the trouble and expense of conquering Earth.

Conquering aliens with an advanced enough technology to keep themselves in the saddle could live on Earth in vast numbers without having to trouble themselves with dirty jobs such as farming or factory work. Their entire workforce could consist of supervisors and military/police members--- higher status jobs, in Earth cultures at least.

Aliens desiring to create a slave-owning colony are a bit more logical than aliens here to ship food, mineral resources, or edible humans back home. The expense of the travel is likely to make such trade wholly unprofitable. But creating new colonies --- especially ones with a native population to do all the menial jobs--- is something that might be worth a great deal to an alien race.

Creating colonies might be something that alien races would do because it helps things at home--- the colonists and soldiers they ship off might be dissidents or potential dissidents, or the whole enterprise might prove stimulating to a stagnating culture.

In my (stalled) NaNo novel 'Bakoun', the aliens also have the motive that their current primary planet--- also a conquered world--- suffers from some problems. The natives of that world, after some thousand years of captivity, have rapidly falling birthrates, and are increasingly less efficient workers. In the experience of the Bakoun, this is an expected thing, and they have a cure--- conquering a fresh world. And the world that they have chosen is Earth.

While the aliens may plan to let the Earth folks do all the heavy lifting, one must be careful not to make them too much of a 'parasitic class'. In the real world, when one looks at things more closely, even a person who seemingly consumes resources without producing, such as a retired senior citizen, may be making highly valuable unsung contributions. Our future alien overlords, likewise, are going to be making some contributions to our society whether they want to or not.

Alien invaders might introduce beneficial advances in technology and medicine. They may end warfare and tribal fighting among humans, if only by giving humans a more tempting target than one another.

In addition, aliens may be more beneficial for some Earth cultures than others. In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar/Colonization series, the alien Race liberates the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto from the Nazis, becoming the Jews' liberators. The Race doesn't care much for the Nazis, however, and, among other things, nukes Berlin and other German cities just to show off their power. The result is that other humans reject the Jews for sucking up to the alien invaders, and make nice with the Nazis in the common cause of fighting the Race.

Question--- if you were writing an alien invasion story, in what way would the invaders be 'parasitic'? In what way would they be beneficial? Which human groups would suffer more under alien rule, and which ones might benefit?