Attribution: Photo by Sandra Gabriel on Unsplash Pink is the New Black: Review of Barbie By Geoff Carter It used to be that movies were pretty much based on a straight narrative template. You know, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, yada yada yada… Then movie storylines started expanding and incorporating graphic novels, comic books, television series, and …
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Month:July 2023
Kickass Cruising the River
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis were “Cruising down the river on a Sunday afternoon,” with the keeper recalling some of the lyrics from the 1946 hit song that includes “With one you love, the sun above, waiting for the moon.” Along the river …
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Kickass and Uncle Ralph
Attribution: National Archives and Records Administration , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, accompanies the keeper on a memory jaunt back to recall one of his wonderful uncles and the magic of the threshing crew. The tradition of farm women preparing noontime feasts for the neighboring farmers who had assembled …
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Kickass and Visiting Granddaughters
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, labels the keeper a “lucky dog” in that he was on hand when Phyllis’s granddaughters–Alexis and Taylor paid her an overnight visit. Alexis brought along her dog Kai so the keeper would have a conversation companion as Phyllis and Alexis and Taylor reminisced about …
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Kickass and UFOs
Attribution:derivative work: thumperward (talk) File:Supposed UFO, Passaic, New Jersey.jpg: –, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in asking what it says about the state of bipartisanship when both Dems and Repubs cooperated in holding a recent hearing on whether or not entities from outer space are …
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The Human Touch
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Revelations about the latest advances in artificial intelligence is causing widespread concern across the entire spectrum of the creative community. For example, the AI-GPT writing generator, which mimics human writing well enough to fool some teachers and college instructors, is one of the bones of contention in the …
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Kickass and No Air Conditioning
Attribution: Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in welcoming this hot, hot day of July 27, 2023, and allows him to reminisce about a childhood when the only air conditioning was riding in the back seat of a Model A Ford going 45 mph …
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Kickass and Road Trip Learning
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper’s recent road trip, though it did not accomplish its original mission of meeting up with any bear, wolves hounds or hounders, was not without discovery, in part by learning of the existence of The Highground Veterans Park west of Neillsville. …
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Kickass and Mike Adventure: Part 2
kikiciao, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the latest expedition involving the keeper and his son Mike will not rank up there with their attempt some years ago to float rivers down to New Orleans and only getting as far as Spring Green, but there is a …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Creative Differences
Attribution: Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter The summer movie blockbuster season is underway. Ads and promotions for Warner Brother’s Barbie, Disney’s Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny, and Universal’s Oppenheimer have been saturating television, the internet, and all other social media. These traditional studio films boast all-star casts, …
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Kickass and Mike Adventure
Attributon: David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that Phyllis wisely chooses to stay home, as the keeper and his son Mike head north with a number of missions on their itinerary: *Find out just what it is that motivates grown men …
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Kickass and Pete’s Hamburgers
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, chose to stay home and nap as the keeper drove Phyllis to Prairie du Chien to introduce her to Pete’s juicy, onion-drenched hamburgers, a Wisconsin tradition since 1909 which is several years before the keeper’s birth. Operated by the Gokey family, the summer-only stand …
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