The Butcher Shop

Gracepoint  and the Meaningful Red Herring by Matthew Butcher, M.A. Murder mysteries are sometimes too easy. In order to put off the audience, the investigation proceeds chasing down the likeliest of subjects. The audience, however, follows these red herrings, avenues to make us look away from the real clues until we are surprised with a satisfying, twisting ending. In reality, the audience knows these are red herrings. Whether it’s because we just think it’s too easy, or we look at the clock and realize it’s too soon in the show, we know these are false leads. We follow because we know they are dropping clues that we need for the real killer.  Gracepoint , a ten-episode murder mystery, used a few red herrings that led deeper into the mysteries of the town. However riveting, these revelations did little to reveal the actual killer. What they did reveal, though, is a far more satisfying culmination to the mystery. For several episodes, the mystery focused on th...

Bases Loaded   Look at this game from the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It is so bad compared to modern day standards. Yet it was phenomenal when compared with what we were used to with Atari and Intellivision baseball games. I remember on the Intellivision game there were no fly-outs and my dad and I could routinely make a 9-3 play (right-fielder to first base) for the out. I played my seasons with the team called Jersey. This game was not licensed by the MLB. The best hitter was "the godly" Paste, who at .467 and 60 home runs was "good for at least one homer a game (provided you can get the lumber on the ball)" (GameFAQs.com). Also there was one pitcher who I figured out some kind of in-game cheat without any codes. The pitcher was Hall and somehow I figured out there was one pitch--up-and-in switch quick to low-and-out--that I could throw every single time and get the batter to swing and miss. I routinely got 27 straight strikeouts. As...

From Forbidden Worlds #14, 1953. I love these old comics. Several brilliantly-paced short short stories in a whole mag. Most of the time, they are great little stories about fantastic fantasy, horror, and sci-fi episodes without getting dragged on for dozens of pages. They are like reading short Twilight Zone episodes in comic form. That is, except when there is an internal logic fault. I can go along with just about any story as long as its rules are set up. I can always imagine Superman flying along, and laser pistols humming out in other sci-fi stories. This page is the last of a short about a radioactive dinosaur turning into a monster after a nuclear test. See what I mean? I can take that premise fine. I can take that the radiation caused the egg to mutate. He hatches and can talk. Fine. He goes on a rampage and nothing, not even bullets, can stop him. Fine. The scientists discover that a chemical cysteine will stop the monster. Fine. But then, just a panel after ...

I came across these old writings on my old blog that are worth looking at again . Here's one called " We Want to Succeed " but sometimes I don't think kids let educators educate them . Sometimes it is more of a fight , a knockdown , drag out fight . During summer school, I have the chance to catch up on my academic reading. Some ACT reports on college readiness and some other journal articles. I have to know what these places think of my English classroom.  However, I dislike the sweeping, broad strokes of disapproval without having much specific concrete steps on what teachers should be doing. I am one of those teachers who, if you tell me the kids need this stuff, I will put it into the curriculum. If you tell me to make sure a process is taught, I will teach it. If you tell me to take something out, I will do it. This year, I will be adding more grammar in the fall. I will be adding some more writing responses with specific r...