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The Walking Dead – About The Living
The Walking Dead – About The Living 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

WARNING: Possible Spoilers

The Walking DeadRecently I started watching “The Walking Dead“. Several friends had recommended it and I admit that I avoided it for a while because, honestly I saw no way that a zombie television series could really captivate anyone for any length of time. Yes, I’ve read the comics and I enjoyed them, but again, zombies… Really?

So there I sat in my living room, having finished Continuum on Netflix and of course Netflix feels that it can recommend a show to you, which half the time I roll my eyes and search for something else. However, for some reason, this time I hit ‘Play’.

I am now on season 2 and although the gore is something I could without (yes, I know… I’m a thriller writer that writes about keeping heads alive, yet I complain about gore). Writing about gore and watching it are two different things – sometimes. Anyway, back to the show; The Walking Dead is surprisingly very well written and the character development completely took me by surprise. I will admit, there are of course some predictable parts at times, but there are also elements that completely took my by surprise.

My heart was wrenched when Carl was shot and I literally said out loud while I was watching “If they kill him, I swear I will stop watching this show.” It wasn’t that he got shot that hit me so hard, it was the moment in which he got shot. A moment of complete, childhood peace, between him and the deer. Something that I have seen in my own children and have experienced myself.

Obviously I got through that part. The show twists and turns as much as The Steel Van Man, which is exactly what makes it so attractive. The actors (ironically – mostly British) are phenomenal and truly put their heart into the characters. Executive producer and writer Robert Kirkman‘s genius in the creation of the story line and further working with writers Scott Gimple, and Glen Mazzara (who wrote on The Shield) really add quality resonance to the show.

A friend of mine saw a snip-it on my phone while I was watching and commented “Really? Is that what you want to watch? Evil? Death, gore?” At first I was offended as I really like the show a lot, but after further thinking about her comments, I can completely see her perspective and that is almost exactly the reason I chose not to watch it for so long. However, having seen as much as I have – I’ve come to realize that the show isn’t really about the gore, about the dead… It’s about the living. It’s about the struggle, the journey. It’s about what is left behind and how we as humanity prevail, survive and show that despite such atrocities and horror, the human soul can prevail. That love, friendship and loyalty are the strongest and most important parts of our existence.

It’s hard for us to see that in our daily life, going about hum drum jobs, our family routines. It takes extremes, war, famine, plague, struggles to really bring out what makes us human at the core – and what shows the worst of humanity. There is most definitely evil out there in our world, but there is tremendous good in the world as well. As cliche as it sounds, you can’t have one without the other. Otherwise you would never know the good when you saw it.

grammar
  • Jason Stadtlander

Grammar Slammer – Lite vs Light, Nite vs Night
Grammar Slammer – Lite vs Light, Nite vs Night 1584 1056 Jason Stadtlander

It’s easy to look at the four words, Lite, Light, Nite and Night and simply assume that the two words ending in “ite” are arbitrary variants on the other two correctly spelled words. But that is not necessarily the case. There is actual etymological background for each of those two words nite and lite.

Nite in the Night

I posed the question to a fellow writer, “Why do people write ‘nite’ instead of ‘night’?” to which he responded, “I believe that ‘nite’ came into existence around with advent of texting and simplification of English.”

That thought had also occurred to me when I began researching the subject. However, I was surprised to find that ‘nite’ in fact shows up in publications as far back as 1800. Now, granted the earliest printing of ‘nite’ show only in pronunciation guides of ‘night’. For example: Night = nite/ (which was later changed to /nīt/ in the twentieth century) or used to define the pronunciation of a syllable of a word such as ‘ig-nite‘

The earliest use of ‘nite’ as ‘night’ I was able to find was a publication of Peterson’s Magazine from 1870.

The Lite of the Light

‘Lite’ actually has two origins:

  • Lite is used as a suffix in the names of rock (Cyrtolite, Actinolite, etc.) having originated from the Greek word ‘lithos’ which means ‘stone’.
  • Lite has generally been used as a commercial variant to define a product or service that is lower quality or contains less of something than their normal product. (for example;  Miller Lite) However, keep in mind, that in defining these commercial products in any literary sense, ‘light’ is still used. For example; “Jarlsberg Lite Cheese has a mild flavor and lighter aroma.”

What’s Write and What’s Wrong

When writing – keep in mind, that in modern English, it is not accepted by editors or writers to use ‘nite’ as a form of ‘night’ OR ‘lite’ as a form of ‘light’. With the advent of texting and the requirement of abbreviated text in social and cultural permutations, it will be interesting to see how the grammatical world perceives these two words fifty years from now.

So, before you go switching off your nite-lite. Make sure you have first turned on your night-light.

 

  • Jason Stadtlander

Grammar Slammer – Insure, Assure and Ensure
Grammar Slammer – Insure, Assure and Ensure 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

Grammar - Insure, Assure, EnsureAs a writer, I frequently run into words that raise a question mark above my own head.

Today, while writing the conundrum of “insure”, “assure” and “ensure” came up. So I thought for my fellow writers (and anyone else that might find it helpful), I would clarify these three frequently confused words:

Assure vs. Ensure vs. Insure

All three words share an element of “making an outcome sure.” However, rather than using these words interchangeably, let me point out the unique aspects of each word so that you can use them to communicate your intention clearly.

Assure is to promise or say with confidence. It is more about saying than doing.
Example: I can assure you that I do know the answer.

Ensure is to do or have what is necessary for success.
Example: Using spell check will ensure that your words are spelled correctly.

Insure is to cover with an insurance policy.
Example: I need to insure my car with a new line of coverage.

Especially in American English, what you insure is a business transaction. What you ensure results from your personal efforts. What you assure is a statement of confidence.

 

I hope that helps!

  • Jason Stadtlander

Screw the Snow!
Screw the Snow! 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

MBTA Map - Winter 2015To and fro, there are canyons of snow that I see
The cold I can handle, but snow? Let me be!
Piles and piles for as far as I view
Winter of 2015, be gone with you!

From Boston to Worcester, just too much white
I stare at my shovel and shiver in fright.
Another ten inches forecasts the panel,
I’m ready to cancel the lame weather channel.

I prayed for the snow, I hoped that it’d come
Now I bury my head and just want for the sun.
But if the sun hits too quick and too warm
We’ll have to swim home with the melt off that forms.

Where will we put another ten inches?
Maybe it’s a nightmare, all I need are some pinches.
No, the snow is as real as the ice on my roof
It too will cave, showing logical proof.

That we cannot handle one more flake or a flurry
Let’s just throw in the towel and move south in a hurry.
Ok, Queen Elsa, you can stop with your snow
Kiss your sister and end this, or suffer the blow.

Every where I look I hope for a pardon
The T is a mess as well as the Garden.
The roads are a joke, full of snow and black ice
Pedestrians walk, getting splashed once or twice

The drifts are up to the Citgo sign
As people in Kenmore, sit there and whine.
Screw the snow! They all yell at the sky in dismay
Even Walsh is pissed off and just wants to play.

But what can we do as ten inches begin
But sit on our butts and pray for the spring.
Hope for this winter to end in no pain
And pray that we won’t soon get a warm rain.

 

  • Jason Stadtlander

Mass Insanity: Follow the Lemmings Oh North East Grocery Shoppers!
Mass Insanity: Follow the Lemmings Oh North East Grocery Shoppers! 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

I’m from Ohio, all my readers know that. And yes… I’ve transplanted to Massachusetts (what feels like eons ago). One thing I always enjoy is poking fun at some of the things that I find just a tad insane about my fellow Bay Staters. You know I love you all, but boy… sometimes you really take the cake for strange and bizarre. I know I wrote a piece at some point on this, but I can’t find it for the life of me, and with 24″ of wonderful white stuff, I just had to poke some fun.

Follow the Lemmings Oh North East Grocery Shoppers!Let’s take the good ole’ nor’easter grocery blast. The first winter I moved here, they were calling for 6″-8″ on a Tuesday. I really didn’t think much of it, because 6″-8″ was a pretty normal snowfall where I grew up in Central Ohio and later when I lived in Montana it wasn’t much to sneeze at.

So, I casually go into the Market Basket grocery store and there is flurry of people running around filling grocery carts to the max with bottles of water and dry goods. Later I stand there and watch as they are (literally) running for the checkout line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6zaVYWLTkU?autoplay=1&w=350&rel=0&showinfo=0

I walked over to the manager of the store and asked “Is there an emergency I’m not aware of?”

She looked at my like I had three heads and replied, “Yes, haven’t you heard about the storm?”

I felt awkward, I said “There’s still only a max of eight inches, right? I mean they haven’t changed the prediction to like five feet or anything? They are planning on actually clearing the roads within three days of the snow fall, right?”

She stared at me and nodded. “So, why is everyone shopping like there won’t be food for three weeks?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, “It’s what people do whenever there is any kind of storm coming.”

To this day that mentality has always bugged me, especially when I need to do some legitimate grocery shopping and there is a storm coming. As it turns out, after doing some research, there is a valid history (of mental damage) that causes people’s panic of the storm. The Blizzard of ’78, which I remember in Ohio, but of course was too young to know about what happened in Massachusetts. Apparently there were two separate storms of 2 feet (or more) of snow. They towed thousands of cars off route 128 and arrested anyone who was on the road.

So let’s examine some of the other “ONLY in Massachusetts” oddities:

  • Alcohol can only be sold in liqueur stores, you can’t buy any in grocery stores, not even beer.
  • “Happy Hour” is illegal with alcoholic beverages
  • Goatees are illegal unless you first pay a special license fee for the privilege of wearing one in public.
  • North Andover has a law that prohibits the use of space guns. (huh?)
  • A state law prevents gorillas from riding in the back seat of any car.
  • In most urban areas, there is a Dunkin Donuts within 1/10th of a mile of another Dunkin Donuts
  • Worcester is pronounced Wuhstah
  • Gloucester is pronounced Glohstah
  • Wicked = Awesome (Unlike us mid westerners that say “Man! F**kin’ A!”)
  • A Frappe is a Milkshake and a milkshake is just gross.
  • Massholes are typical drivers.
  • Hoodsie cups are cups of ice cream (P.S. don’t read the ingredients)
  • The North Shore and The South Shore might as well be separate states.
  • To take an hour to go 15 miles is normal.
  • Subsequently, distance to a location in Boston is measured in ‘time it takes to get there’, not miles.

Fellow Bay Staters, have any others that should be added?

  • Jason Stadtlander

The Power of Positive Thinking
The Power of Positive Thinking 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

Next in my “Power of Humanity” series this week, I am looking at the power of positive thinking, something that I don’t take enough time to do.

Positive thinking can best be defined as optimism, or a technique for changing your attitude in order to foster optimism.

It’s All In Your Head

More true than you know… optimism is a choice, sometimes a difficult one, that must be made in your mind. A choice to look past the bad things that are going on and the stress that is all around you and choosing to see the good, the light of the day rather than the shadows and darkness. Positive thinking is a mental attitude where you allow yourself to grasp words, images and see the good believing in favorable results in whatever you are doing. That in turn, leads to feeling good about yourself and giving you more strength to think positively. It can become a (good) chain reaction.

Winston S. Churchill said in his book “My Early Life“: “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

No truer words were ever spoken.

How Can Positive Thinking Change Your Life?

Optimism comes from the Latin word optimus, which means ‘best’. Those that are optimistic are always looking for the best in a situation and expecting good things to happen. It is a belief, but no more different from that of a pessimist who believes that the bad things will happen.

If you believe that good things will happen, then they will. Perhaps not today, or even tomorrow, but eventually. They may not be the things you were hoping would happen, but if you have that positive attitude, then you will see the good things that are happening rather than dwell on the bad.

The Power of Positive ThinkingHaving positive thought or optimism really comes down to how you talk to yourself, believing that your actions will have positive results and it also requires (and creates) a level of trust in yourself that such actions will be positive. An optimist doesn’t believe in ‘luck’ but rather that they make their own luck. That if you work hard on something and persevere, good things will come of it. They realize that the positive events in their life are not simply flukes, but are tangible results of the inevitable progress of their own actions.

In studies, positive thinking has actually shown to decrease depression, decrease stress and increase your life span. In the link in the previous sentence, the researches state that

It’s unclear why people who engage in positive thinking experience these health benefits. One theory is that having a positive outlook enables you to cope better with stressful situations…

Which makes complete sense. Stress has been shown to have devastating physical effects on the body as well as the mind. Keeping a positive mind, focuses on the good and the less stressful points in life.

Two Words, Two Results

Optimist: A person who looks at the good in life and focuses on the positive, expecting favorable results. They believe that their actions will eventually have good results.

Pessimist: A person who blames themselves for the bad things that happen in their lives and thinks that one mistake means more will inevitably come. They believe that positive events are flukes.

Which are you?

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  • Jason Stadtlander

The Power of Friendship
The Power of Friendship 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

This week I’m going to create a series called “The Power of Humanity“. I will choose a few topics to focus on and expand upon them. The first of which, is friendship.

I have been struggling with the concept of friendship the past few months. Trying to understand the boundaries, the necessity and the impact that friends can have on our lives. I would be lying if I said that friendship is no longer an enigma to me, but I also feel as though I have a bit more of an understanding.

I have good friends, bad friends and everything in between. What I have found is, that friendship itself is both selfless and selfish. Before you go off stating that I am just talking about a bunch of canceling out jibberish, here me out.

One of my best friends recently told me when I was discussing the concept of friendship that: “You meet people for a reason, a season or a lifetime.”

The Power of FriendshipThis sounded trite to me at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Friendship is a give and take. We need our friends at times and our friends need us at other times. Sometimes the “take” is much more than the “give”, which depending on the giver, they can either handle being a support structure, or they cannot. I will admit that given my life the last two years, I’ve done much more taking than giving (and to my dearest friends I apologize profusely). However, I think they know that I will be happy to reciprocate that in turn.

Best friends, Close friends and Acquaintances

I can divide my friends into three categories and then I divide acquaintances into three subcategories:

1. Best friends
2. Close friends
3. Acquaintances
a. Those that I need to associate with for networking reasons
b. Those that I don’t like, but need to keep an eye on (they say keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer)
c. Those that I care about, but don’t know well

Aside from the obvious (family), there are nine people in this world that I would lay down my life for. Two of which I almost never speak with anymore for one reason or another, but I still hold them very strong as a friend and though they might not know it, I’d do anything for them.

There are is a large group of people that I would help out if they were in need and reached out to me. These are people that I consider close friends but perhaps not my best friends. Then there are acquaintances that I am associated with, respect and consider them good people. However, these people have either not had enough contact with me or have not attempted to communicate with me enough to gain the respect that a close friend deserves.

Why have friends?

A simple, but extremely complicated question.
1. They understand how you think. True friends, know how you tick psychologically. They can temper you and can help you make a decision that your own perspective prevents you from seeing.
2. Friends lift you up. In a time of need, friends know what makes you happy, they know how to help change your mood. (Consequently, if friends become enemies, they also know your weaknesses.)
3. Life long friends shape your life. Friends that you have had for most of your life, shape your interests, your social interactions and teach you about important life skills.
4. Friends can help you define your priorities. The old saying “birds of a feather flock together” is true. You will tend to attract to people similar to you. Your friends can help you protect yourself because they also fall into the same traps you do.
5. They prevent loneliness. Loneliness can be painful, we are social creatures.
6. They support you through thick and thin. As time goes on, we are always pruning our friendship tree here and there. It’s the branches that are there through all the pruning that are your strongest friends. They will be there for you no matter what you do or what happens.

The reality is, we need friendship. Even those that claim they don’t need it – yep… they need it. They are just too stubborn to admit it.

Friends play a key role in our ability to be individuals, a community and a society as a whole. If you have friends, cultivate the ones that cultivate you and remember, they say to ‘Do unto others as you’d have done to yourself’. That does not mean you should be doing harm to those that have done it to you… your job is not to pay people back for the wrong doings they do. That is up to God. But if you have a friend who is there for you, through thick and thin, be there for them through their hardest times and they will carry you through their (and your) happy times as well.

What do your friends mean to you?

  • Jason Stadtlander

The Covenant of Joseph
The Covenant of Joseph 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

The woman I love has been with child from another. Uncertain how to feel, uncertain what to do.

That is until I see your face. A father’s love, the father’s gaze. As I hold you in my arms, I know the truth. For looking into your eyes, the purity in the beauty. The fact that you are not my son, but the son of my father.

The enormous responsibility weighs on my mind. Looking into this beautiful baby’s face, not that of my blood but that of the face of God. Why did you choose us? What can we possibly give for the son of God? I vow to you my son, that I will teach you and guide you and love you. I promise to you oh Lord that I will show you what a loving father is. Holding my wife’s hand, we will help you grow and nurture you. So that you may one day lead us to a salvation that we hope exists. Jesus my son, Jesus my King, Jesus my Lord from Heaven.

  • Jason Stadtlander

Blood and Water
Blood and Water 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

The blood pumps in your veins
And keeps you alive;
From the family you came
It’s all that survives.

What now of that blood
And how it connects you;
It can bury you in mud
Or it can make you blue.

The wrath of the kin
Clouds the sky with stark grey;
Drives a spike through the sin
Keeps the angels away.

That blood also flows
Through your body and mind;
In all that it shows
Alone it is blind.

How then can you choose
What path you must take;
Tolling on kin to amuse
Or in solitary wake.

To stand proud and be kind
Regardless of blood;
The water will then unwind
For it too is a flood.

Water is not as thick as blood
For blood will endure;
If you allow it to bud
Only then is it pure.

Water crests in a wave
But then it is gone;
Leading only to save
What once was in sun.

The life giving liquid
Leads toward your future;
It need not be frigid
Or twist you with torture.

Do not let your blood haunt you
Or betray you it will;
Follow your heart true
And your life it will fill.

  • Jason Stadtlander

The Jibbery Jik
The Jibbery Jik 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

What’s wrong with you Dick
Are you getting quite thick?
You’re standing among the Jibbery Jik

Can’t you see they don’t care ’bout your hair or your clothes?
What matters to them, the most is your nose
You constantly pick it and pull out a prize
You jump up and down and wiggle your thighs

The Jibbery JikYour boogers are treasures, a delight in your hand.
You wave them about and then you demand,
“What’s this? Look here! I’ve found something awesome! Something new and fantastic! Something worthy of Dawson!”

But the Jibbery Jik do not care of your prize, not at all.
They stare you blankly, blinking eyes, standing tall.
They say “You sir, are sick, disgusting and rude.
We want nothing of you and find you quite crude.”

So in sadness you walk, booger in hand.
Wishing that they would just understand.
It’s special to you, something pure, something true.

So off with the Jik and their silly ways that they live.
It’s a pity they can’t see what joy the nose gives.

Copyright © Jason Stadtlander - All Rights Reserved

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