Tag: reader response

A New Contest for Readers: Cast the Movie!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of bell mountain series by lee duigon

To celebrate the publication of Bell Mountain No. 10, The Silver Trumpet. and the long-awaited (by me) expansion of my market to Barnes & Noble Nook and Google Play, I has thunk up–stop! Too much Joe Collidge. I have devised a new contest for you, dear and faithful readers, new and old alike.

For years I’ve been pipe-dreaming about a Bell Mountain movie, and even trying my hand at assembling a cast for it. Last night I thought it might be much more fun to let all of you join in.

**So here’s the contest. Whoever can propose the best cast, at least half a dozen characters, for a Bell Mountain movie, wins an autographed copy of The Silver Trumpet. It’s okay if the actors you propose are dead. That will only slightly decrease the movie’s  chance of ever being made.

@@Sample entry> Lord Reesh: Lou Costello; Helki the Rod: Sandy Becker; Jack: Mike Mazurki; Ellayne: Lee Remick; Obst: Hector Elizondo; the Baroness: Dame Judith Anderson. (Note: I purposely selected actors no one else would select. Do try to do better than this!)

Anyone can play, all are eligible–and I’ll keep the contest open for a while, so some of you can catch up on your reading. Entries will be judged by me and my wife, and if we can’t decide among two or three or four entries, they’ll all win.

Come on, now, join in–this should be a lot of fun. Enter as often as you like. Feel free to comment on other readers’ entries. The whole thing’ll fall flat, of course, if everybody just sits around waiting for someone else to play.

How to enter? Simple. Just “leave a comment” or “leave a reply” on any post, anytime.

I can hardly wait to see what you guys come up with.

P.S.–Everybody seems to enjoy reading about this, but so far, very few have actually participated. C’mon now, folks! I can’t run a contest with only half a dozen entrants–and I don’t have half a dozen yet.

Encore (and Then Some!): ‘Blessed Assurance’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Blessed Assurance has been in my mind lately, and so has Fountainview Academy. When I went to youtube this morning to select a hymn, I soon settled on this. Then, returning here to post it, I first noticed I had a new message from “thewhiterabbit”–requesting Blessed Assurance as the hymn for the day.

Now that is cool!

So here it is, words by Fanny Crosby, performed by Fountainview Academy. And if the background scenery looks funny, it’s because the kids were visiting Italy at the time.

Prayer Request: Billie Kaye

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Marge has asked us to pray for her sister-in-law, Billie Kaye, who is in the hospital following a suicide attempt. This is always a shock to the family, especially when the person seems otherwise healthy and good to go.

Well, we’re not here to inquire into it, but to pray. O Lord our God, be merciful to your servant, Billie Kaye, for Jesus’ sake; and whatever sickness of the soul it was that moved her to so terrible an act, please, Father, take it away from her, heal her, and make her clean. And comfort her family around her, enfold them in your love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introducing…. the Quokka

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Even Mr. Nature doesn’t know everything about nature; so when “Watchman” asked if I’d ever heard of the quokka, reputed to be “the happiest animal in the world,” I had to say no. Nevertheless, there is such an animal and here it is.

I think they look like a cross between a kangaroo and a teddy bear. They live on scattered islands off the coast of Australia, and are zealously protected from overattentive tourists who just can’t get enough of them. Unlike most kangaroos and teddy bears, quokkas are very good at climbing trees.

God’s stuff–we never run out of things to love and admire in His handiwork.

‘Why Aren’t I 50 Points Ahead?’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I’m tempted to make this a contest: whoever submits the best answer wins a free book.

Hillary Clinton wants to know why she isn’t being handed the White House on a silver platter. She seems genuinely puzzled as to why America isn’t kissing her feet and begging her to be their empress.

You may think this is too easy, this is just shooting fish in a barrel: but in the multiplicity of answers, it’d be easy to overlook a good one.

So come, on folks–explain to Hillary why she isn’t 50 points ahead.

And remember, everybody: if you don’t vote for Trump, you are helping this woman to become president. And you become her accomplice.

More on Gambling

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

If you read yesterday’s post on “Britain’s Gambling Epidemic,” you saw that my fellow blogger, Ajoobacats, a medical doctor living in Britain, was really, really mad at me for posting that article, based as it was on information from newspaper articles in The Daily Mail and The Times. I won’t put words in her mouth: you can read her comments for yourself.

But let me say this.

I was a newspaper editor when they introduced a state lottery and then legalized casino gambling here in New Jersey, back in the 1970s. I was there. I covered it. I saw it.

The immediate effect of this was to entice millions of people into gambling who otherwise wouldn’t have been gambling. I remember the pair of schoolteachers who blew their whole life savings on lottery tickets–something like $20,000, at least. They made a huge fuss, and wound up having a face-to-face meeting with the state lottery commissioner–who had a hard time trying to make them understand that when the odds against winning are something like 400 million to one, 400 million to 20,000 really isn’t that much better. It would be on the order of 1 million to 50, if my mental arithmetic is right.

Senior citizens on fixed incomes flocked to Atlantic City to burn up their grocery money on the slot machines. In the inner cities, the lines stretch around the block, the day the Powerball winner is selected. (Given the odds against, there usually isn’t one.)

But I’ll tell you what made the biggest impression on me.

A few years ago, I fell into a conversation with a young woman from an economically depressed area. She already had two out-of-wedlock children by two different men, and was pregnant with a third, by a third. This poor creature confided in me her simple plan for the rest of her life:

To win the lottery and move out West and buy a horse farm, because she loves horses.

To win the lottery. That was her plan.

I don’t care what libertarians say. Gambling is stupid, and for the state to foster it, to grow it, is moral imbecility on the part of persons in the government.

So, no–based on what I’ve seen here at home, I have no trouble at all believing that people in Britain have increased their gambling activities after the government permitted gambling machines to be set up all over the cities.

If that hasn’t happened, I would be surprised. It would go against sinful human nature.

 

You Do Know There’s a Comment Contest?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Yo, everybody–I just want to remind you there’s a comment contest here, and whoever posts Comment No. 5,000 wins a free book.

How to play: simple. Just scroll down to the bottom of the post you’re reading and click “Leave a Comment” (or is it “Leave a Reply”? I never have to use it, so I can’t remember).

I will not publish comments abusive to me or to any other commenter, or containing the f-bomb, or blasphemous, or intended to sell a product while pretending to be a  comment (you get spammed if you try that), or just too blatantly inane for words. Otherwise, anything goes.

And yes, I do post comments by liberals. Not that I get that many.

Anyway, instead of sitting there watching the Stupid Bowl today, read fun articles on this blog and comment away.

New Comment Contest

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Comment No. 4,700 has just come in, so I reckon it’s time to announce a new contest.

Whoever posts Comment No. 5,000 will win a free book.

The last contest I announced (find three new readers for my books and win a free book for yourself) seems to have fallen flat on its face. It must be awful hard to get anyone to buy books. (Here he makes a strenuous but successful effort to refrain from saying something naughty about a certain other author.)

But a comment contest, that’s easy! Just scroll to the bottom of any post and leave a comment.

Also, sometime this Spring, this blog will receive its 100,000th view. I haven’t figured out a way to make a contest out of that,  but I’m open to suggestion.

And now, just now, it’s raining hard and my elbow really hurts… so I must sign off for now.