Jim Stitzel
Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of WordsExcerpts from Life
Burnout: Paradise
Driving, jumping, crashing, burning. I recently pulled _Burnout: Paradise_ back out of its box and plunked it down in the tray. The reason? My wife bought me a 26" HDTV for Christmas, which is a huge step up from a 13" SDTV. Turns out, you can actually see the streets...
Speed Racer
Speed Racer driving toward a win. A lot of reviews of _Speed Racer_ hail it as yet another example of just how far the Wachowski brothers have fallen since _The Matrix_. But I have a hard time identifying anything about the flick to criticize. It's cheesy and campy,...
Contacts or Glasses
The downside to wearing contact lenses is that some days I forget which ones I'm wearing. So, when I reach up to rub an itch away from my eye, I either end up pushing my contact lens up under my eyelid (very uncomfortable) or leaving a big, greasy smear on my glasses....
Fiction
Shriek
She accosted him on the sidewalk, as he was loading the last of his gear into the truck. He had just come from a client’s house, the last job of the day. He was loading his backpack sprayer when she slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet. She was...
Accusations
She leans against the sink and stares at the message scrawled in the dust on the mirror. Thank god it’s just dust this time, and not blood. Her arms and thighs are criss-crossed with the scissored scars of past blood-lettings. She breathes deeply, heavily, though...
Heartstone
It is a wondrous thing to hear your child’s heart beat for the first time. All those long hours of laboring and toiling over a workbench, all those days and weeks of tenderly, gingerly nudging gears and springs and cogs into place. All those blisters and burns and...