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Credits: TheTalkingDad.com & FeedWind.comRecent Posts: M Thomas Apple Author Page
12 Times SFF Characters Trained Their Own Duplicates
My award-winning SF novella Adam’s Stepsons featured clones, which as some reviewers noted came a little after the peak of clones (although I wonder if we have yet to hit the “peak,” given scientific progress). So as I was scouring the net for summer reads, I came across a lot of books about clones and […]
No, the “golden asteroid” will NOT make you rich
I wrote about this a couple of days ago (based on an article from two weeks prior), but it’s interesting to see random websites suddenly jumping on the “we’ll all get rich!” asteroid mining band wagon. Hey, everybody, let’s copy-paste stuff and not use our brains! A new article by rt.com even includes two click-bait links […]
Indie writers, Amazon is not your friend
As if writers hadn’t already figured this out, Amazon really couldn’t care less about the books of yours they sell. Notice I didn’t write “the books they sell for you.” Because they’re obviously not interested in you making any money. Not when they can allow random “companies” to download your manuscript, slap on their own […]
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© Matthew Apple and Taking Leave, 2009-2017. Duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. If you would like to post or copy brief excerpts from the blog, please provide a link to the original URL along with an author's credit.
Category Archives: Japanese culture
First Year Wall (Part 2) – The (not-so voluntary) parent-teacher conference
In mid-April, I went to a parent-teacher conference. Actually, it was more like an enforced PTA committee, which one parent per kid had to attend. As a group. We sat at our kids’ desks (tiny!) and introduced ourselves. This was … Continue reading
Death of a Cherry Tree
This past Monday, city workers came to cut down a cherry tree near our house. It had been there for years. We found out later that a neighbor had complained that leaves falling in her backyard were a nuisance to … Continue reading
Farewell, Nursery. Hello, Kindergarten
After turning five in January, our youngest daughter finally made to the end of nursery school (“nen-cho,” 年長). Or so we thought. We had heard rumors in previous years that the system might change. It turns out that in this … Continue reading
Who was that Masked Flu Avenger?
Looking back now, I can laugh. The first week of February was rough. My wife had to work both weekend days, at the end of an already exhausting end-of-semester work week. I had also had little sleep. The previous month, my … Continue reading
Kaiten Zushi Magic
Last week, my youngest daughter turned 5. Because three of us (both daughters and myself) were recovering from the mumps, we cancelled her birthday party and rescheduled it for the 14th. As a reward to both girls for their hard … Continue reading
Daddy-daughter vacation (kind of)
Friday, my two daughters (aged 7 and 4) and I set off on a four-hour bullet train (Shinkansen) ride without my wife. She did see us off at the Shin-Osaka bullet train station, but since she had a week-long business … Continue reading
Self-reliance starts young
Two weeks ago, my daughter graduated nursery school. Last week, my grandmother passed away (my daughter’s great-grandmother). Today, my daughter walked to elementary school for the first time. And the cycle continues… This is cherry blossom (sakura) season in Japan, … Continue reading
