The History of "Tales of the Crypt" and EC Comics Horror Part II

The continuing story of the history of 'Tales from the Crypt' and EC Comics Horror

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The History of "Tales of the Crypt" and EC Comics Horror Part II
Read Part I

Going back in history

By 1952, over twenty publishing companies, including Gaines’ EC Comics, were putting out nearly seven hundred titles per month.  Approximately one hundred million comic books were sold each week.  In his book, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), cultural historian David Hajdu presents reports that the average comic book issue had a pass along rate of six or more readers.  In the early 1950s, comics reached more people than magazines, radio, and television.

Comics and pulp


The crime comics of the time and the pulp magazines on which they were partly based saw the rise of a subgenre of narrative that featured sadistic villains and graphic scenes of torture and death.  With influences from the Grand Guignol theater of Paris, these stories moved ever closer to the outright salacious tone of the horror genre proper. In 1947, Avon Publications, a subsidiary of the American News Company, published Eerie, the first comic book with original horror content.  When Gaines showed on the scene in 1947, the market was primed for a new direction.  Titles like Tomb of Terror, Adventures into the Unknown, The Tormented, and Chamber of Chills began to pop up.  By the early 1950s, a third of all comics were horror comics.

Max Gaines and the founding of Educational Comics


Before the realization of that new industry direction and before Gaines himself even entered the scene, it was Gaines' father, Maxwell Charles Gaines, referred to as Max, who pioneered the industry and provided the conditions for the spark to happen.  Born in New York City in 1894, Max grew into a combative and uncompromising personality.  In The Mad World of William Gaines (1972), author Frank Jacobs recounts an incident when a four-year-old Max leaned out of a second-story window and fell out, catching his leg on a picket fence on the way down.  The leg became the source of a lifetime of pain and discomfort, often contributing to his aggravated temperament as an adult. Gaines and his father did not get along, the latter charging that the former would never amount to anything.  By Gaines’ recollection, Max “expected the worse from his son and was rarely disappointed,” and would often employ the stern reproaches of a leather belt to make his point.  Nonetheless, Max proved a pivotal character in the history of the American comic book. Famous Funnies, 1933. The first comic book.
Up until around 1933, comics were printed predominantly in strip format, though a couple of newspaper tabloid inserts had been published by then.  Max became the first to compile the strips into what cultural historians recognize as the first true American comic book – a 36-page book called Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics (1933).  With the subsequent Funnies on Parade, Max invented a whole new market for publishers – the beginning of the comic book industry. In an essay entitled Narrative Illustration: The Story of Comics, Max traced the origins of the comic book to the time of the prehistoric caveman, who would scratch and paint records of mythologies and daily life on cave walls.  He contends that these stories satisfied mankind’s innate urge to depict a story and tell it for the record.  “[Comic books’] appeal to the consumer,” he writes in the piece, “is also of profound significance and their method of approach has been recognized and adapted to purposes of propaganda and advertising.  Many of their artists have ingenuity, imagination, and an unerring control of the pen in communicating ideas.” Max went on to found Educational Comics in 1944 after he acquired the rights to the comic book title, Picture Stories from the Bible.  With the objective of using his company to market religious and educational stories to schools and churches, Max set about making his mark on the industry.  Picture Stories from American History, Land of the Lost, and Animal Fables became the company’s bread and butter.  These wholesome preliminary titles were a far cry from the slew of gleefully distasteful ones that his son Bill would later publish.
On August 20, 1947, Max took a speedboat trip out onto Lake Placid in New York with his friend Sam Irwin and Irwin’s 8-year-old son, William.  Tragedy struck when another speedboat collided with theirs.  Max was able to hurl Irwin’s son out of the way at the last second before the collision.  Unfortunately, Sam and Max were both killed.  Gaines was 25-years-old when he inherited his late father’s business.  His mother had to request it of him.  Thus, his plans of becoming a high school chemistry teacher were put aside for this unexpected (and not altogether welcomed) venture. Gaines' first act as the owner of the company was to reinvent the business model from the ground up.  He changed the name of the company from Educational Comics to Entertaining Comics or EC Comics. Probing the history of the new EC Comics, a cultural historian can divide their publication cycles into two distinct trends.  The first trend saw the production of mostly western, comedy, romance, and crime titles.  Comics like Gunfighter, Saddle Justice, and War Against Crime! became their focus – what became known as the teenage market for comic books.

Al Feldstein

In 1948, Albert Feldstein, know to his friends and colleagues simply as Al, came onboard as an artist and effectively started the next publication trend, launching the company in a whole new direction and into comic book history.  Because the industry was flooded with imitators who sought to cash in on the craze, sales took a dip for many of these companies.  Feldstein sought a solution.  In an interview with The Comics Journal #177 (May 1995), he recalled this pivotal moment.
“I came to [Gaines] one day and said, ‘Look Bill, why are we following these idiots and, when the trend dies, getting caught? Why don’t we innovate, and why don’t we have people follow us?’ At that time, we were very good friends. We used to go to roller derby together and he used to drive me home because we both lived in Brooklyn. We’d chat on the way home and we got to talking about what we liked when we were kids. Bill was a science fiction and horror fan, and I was a horror movie fan, and I said, ‘Why don’t we try horror?’ I reminded him about the ‘Old Witch’s Tale’ on Lights Out, Arch Oboler’s stuff on radio." As a genre, horror flourished in America in the years after the Great Depression and leading up to WWII.  Pulp fiction, which became all the rage in the 1920s and 30s, emphasized exploitative and sensational subject matter. In November 1923, the first issue of Weird Tales was published.  After visiting the Grand Guignol theater for inspiration, publisher Henry Steeger revived the Dime Mystery Novel series and added Terror Tales in September 1934 and Horror Stories in January 1935.  The lurid stories of the pulp magazines are predecessors to those of the horror comic.  The radio shows that Gaines and Feldstein admired, like The Shadow (1930) and The Spider (1933), also proved highly popular.  The 1930s also saw the proliferation of the Universal Pictures horror films.  Movies like Todd Browning’s Dracula (1931) and James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) were highly influential. The stage was set for these horror comic book titles to take root in the market.  In fact, prior to the Gaines and Feldstein’s car ride discussion, the idea of creating a horror comic had already been floating around.  According to Hajdu in The Ten-Cent Plague, comic book artist Sheldon Moldoff had already proposed horror to Gaines and created a mock-up of two issues – Tales of the Supernatural and This Magazine is Haunted.  The two issues sat in a cabinet the night Gaines and Feldstein hatched their plan.  Eventually, some of the stories in the Moldoff comics would get published through EC Comics’ horror titles.

Developing the horror

They first tested the market for this new format in December of 1949 with the inclusion of two original horror stories embedded within Crime Patrol #15 and its companion publication War Against Crime #10: “Return from the Grave” and “Buried Alive.”  One of the key features of the radio thrillers that both Gaines and Feldstein drew inspiration from was the presence of a host to introduce, comment on, and close out the stories.  Crime Patrol first introduced readers to the Crypt Keeper; War Against Crime introduced the Vault Keeper. In “Return from the Grave,” two greedy executives convince a down-on-his-luck business owner to commit suicide so that they can take control of his company.  When they get a call for a large order of perfume, the men are thrown into a panic because they do not have the perfume formula to manufacture the product.  The formula, as it turns out, is written on a piece of paper that was in the pocket of the suit the old man was buried in. The men set to digging up the grave, but rather than find the formula, they discover an empty coffin with a note that reads: “I have discovered how you have stolen money from me for the last three years driving me to suicide. I have risen from my grave... and will not return until I have taken my revenge!"  The two executives meet their demise, of course. It is worth noting that many of the repeated story formulas for the EC horror comics (all of which were developed by Feldstein, Gaines, and later, other key figures that would play pivotal roles in the overarching legacy of EC Comics) involved malevolent characters meeting their demise at the hands of the people they wronged.  This theme of evil-begets-more-evil, or punishment being inflicted on the sinner, is categorically at odds with the moralistic objections of the Senators who would later push for a permanent halt in the production of such materials. In “Buried Alive” an anxious gravedigger named John is tortured by a nightly recurring dream that he has buried alive the person whose grave he dug earlier that day.  The dream involves a case of mistakenly proclaimed catalepsy which causes everyone to believe the person to be dead.  In the dream, John can hear the moaning from the graveyard of the person buried alive.  He awakens from these dreams in a panic, and to clear his conscience of any possible mistake, he goes to the cemetery in the dead of night to dig up the grave and find out if the person was, in fact, buried alive.  He does this on two occasions, and to his relief, the person is undeniably dead. He covers back up the grave but is puzzled the next morning after each occasion to read in the local newspaper that a grave was found that day to be desecrated by an unknown graverobber.  In an unexpected revelation, the dreams the gravedigger was having turn out to have been premonitions of his own being buried alive, and he awakens from a cataleptic state to find that he is buried six feet underground in a coffin.  As panic sets in and oxygen runs short, John seems on the verge of death, when suddenly he hears digging above him.  In a final plot twist, characteristic of the juiciest pulp fiction, the graverobber who digs up the grave and inadvertently saves the protagonist is none other than the protagonist’s best friend. These types of stories proved highly popular.  Final, revelatory plot twists and dramatic turns in the direction of the plot became hallmarks of the genre.  When Gaines and Feldstein noticed an uptick in sales, they decided to stay the course and keep producing horror stories.  By issue #16 of Crime Patrol, there were more horror stories in the publication than crime stories.  Gaines suggested changing the title of the comic to something else.

Title changes and the U.S. mail system


In the early 1950s all magazines, including comics, had to be shipped through the U.S. mail system with a Second-Class Entry status.  Publishers had to register and pay a fee to obtain the status.  To avoid paying that fee, they would simply change the title of an old publication and keep the same shipping status.  For this reason, when Crime Patrol became The Crypt of Terror and War Against Crime became The Vault of Horror, the title of the publication changed but the numbering of the issues stayed the same.  The Crypt of Terror (later renamed Tales from the Crypt with issue #20 in December 1949) debuted with issue #17 and The Vault of Horror debuted with issue #12. In May 1950, The Haunt of Fear was introduced with the Old Witch hosting the stories.  It was common for the Crypt Keeper, the Vault Keeper, and the Old Witch to routinely make appearances in each other’s magazines.  Apart from their titles, nothing distinguished one comic book from the other.  Each publication featured a morbid, tongue-in-cheek style humor in conjunction with the horror stories, which focused on subjects like murder, the supernatural, monsters, witchcraft, and zombies.  A new era had begun.   Read Part III   Edited by Kyle Weckerly

5 Tech Must-Haves for Your College Dorm Room

Soon classes at your local college will start. Here are five tech must-haves for dorm living to get the most out of your college experience.

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5 Tech Must-Haves for Your College Dorm Room
Soon classes at your local college will start. Before that happens, you’ll be moving into your dorm room. If you’re lucky and live close enough to home, then you won’t have to get a dorm room. Or if you’ve found a way to score off-campus housing. If not, then there here are five tech must-haves for dorm living.

1.      A Good Laptop

You will be writing, period. What kind of writing you do is up to you…or your professor. You might write emails to friends and family, writing social media posts, or when you have time, that paper that’s due tomorrow. A good laptop is essential these days. All room and board charges cover Wi-Fi, so you don’t have to worry about the bill. Be it an Apple, a Dell, HP, Toshiba, or any of the other brands, make surer you find one with 8 to 16GB of RAM, as well as a good amount of storage. Low RAM means a slow computer. I speak from experience as my college laptop was slow. This made for some frustrating nights as I tried to write.

2.      Virtual Storage

This never happened to me, but I remember a fellow college student running full on across campus to get to the computer lab. There was a paper due that was 70% of his grade and the class was in ten minutes. So he’d downloaded it onto a flash-drive and sprinted across campus. Virtual storage wasn’t what it is today, but there were options at the time. Us poor college students couldn’t afford it though. Get a free Gmail account and you’ll get access to Google Drive. This way you can work on papers, save a copy to Drive, and print them out anywhere you have access to your email. Just make sure there’s a printer installed, filled with paper and ink.

Bonus

Although a little bit more expensive, get an external hard drive. My wife, who wrote huge papers for her honors program, kept one and it saved her sanity on more than one occasion. While virtual storage is helpful, a solid backup is added peace-of-mind. So save yourself the stress. And that guy who bolted across campus to print out his paper? He dropped the flash-drive on his way and couldn’t find it. Save yourself the anxiety and get virtual storage.

3.      Bluetooth Speakers

Back in my day, it was all about the stereos with multiple-disc interchanges. I graduated before the iPod really took off, or the iPhone came out. Not by much, mind you, but yes, I went to college in a time when Discmans were still the “it” thing. With smaller, and portable, speakers available, you have music right there with you, no matter where you go. Create a playlist on your phone, pair with a Bluetooth speaker, and you can take this anywhere you go. Doesn’t matter if you’re studying or at a party, you’ll be your own DJ. Check out JBL, Canz, Bose, Sony, and other Bluetooth speaker makers to find the one that works for you and your budget. Another plus- if someone has a Bluetooth speaker in their room and you’re not digging the music, just pair your phone to it and play your own music!

4.      Noise Cancelling Headphones

Dorms will be noisy. Doesn’t matter the time of day, someone will be making noise. Invest in noise-canceling headphones, it’ll help save your sanity. You just never know when two guys next door will decide to pump up their sub-woofer to watch The Punisher. Even with headphones on, I couldn’t hear my own music. Therefore, noise-canceling would have been a good idea at the time. Bose, Plantronics, AKG, and Beats are just some of the manufacturers who make noise-canceling headphones. And they come highly rated! You can then shut off all outside noise while you study, or just listen to something other than your loud dormmates.

5.      A Smart TV

With smart TV’s so prevalent, you can find a good deal on one with good resolution and apps like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. This will help cut down on all the clutter you have to take with you. Your movies and shows will be in one place, allowing you to save shelf space for…other things.

Bonus

Get a Chromecast, Roku Firestick, or Apple TV. These will make up for any apps or streaming services that don’t come with your smart TV. Or if you can’t get a smart TV at all, then you’ll have this as a backup. Since most dorms come with Wi-Fi, you’ll be able to stream and download that way and never miss the next episode of your favorite TV show.

Extra Bonus

The greatest thing about college is all the freedom you get to enjoy. The worst thing about college…is all the freedom you get to enjoy. You don’t have to figure it out on your own. Dorm life has been a constant for millions of people for years. Some of those people have gone on to write books about the experience. Find these on Amazon, Half-Price Books, BN.com, or download to your favorite eBook reader. This way you can learn from other’s mistakes so you can avoid making the same ones yourself.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Published in 1954, detailing the exploits of a college professor who doesn’t want the job at all. It may help you get an idea of where your professors are coming from.

Free Stuff Guide for Everyone by Peter Sander

Everything is expensive these days. When you’re in college this will be a harsh reality to contend with. Get this helpful guide so you can find the best deals, discounts, or other ways of making your dollar go farther.

Goodnight Dorm Room: All the Advice I Wish I Got Before Going to College by Samuel Kaplan and Keith Riegert

A funny and honest look at college. This book helps you understand the realities of college, as well as the real world, as well as giving you hints on how to adapt to dorm living and get ahead.

Dorm Room Essentials Cookbook by Gina Meyers

Everyone has to eat. But cafeteria food gets old really fast. And eating out for every meal is not feasible. This cookbook clues you in on how to make snacks, meals, and desserts on a budget and in your own dorm room.

The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College by Harlan Cohen

If there’s a lot of people living in a close, confined space, then the numbers dictate that one of them will be weird. Handling roommates and dormmates is a part of college life. Best to get ahead of the game and buy this book.

The College Humor Guide to College by Ethan Trex and Streeter Seidell

Who better to guy you into college than the people who parody college living? By taking the humorous route, the book is more helpful than actual guidebooks.   There are more titles like these available. This list will get you started. Make sure you get these books and read them before classes start. This way you’ll be even more prepared for college than any high school prep class could have made you. Download the eBooks, audiobooks, or stream them to your device with reliable internet. To do that, check out the best cable and internet deals. This way you’ll save some money before you jet off to higher education.

Is Facebook Losing Altitude?

Facebook is having more tough times. Last week their stock dropped 19%, resulting in a net loss of $119 Billion. Is this the end for Facebook?

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Is Facebook Losing Altitude?
Facebook is having more tough times. Last week their stock dropped 19%, resulting in a net loss of $119 Billion. That’s “billion” with a “b.” The once meteoric Facebook is having trouble with growth. That’s not surprising as they’re still recovering from the Cambridge Analytica Scandal from back in March. This forced the social media giant to implement new policies when it comes to protecting their users’ privacy. This new direction for Facebook is proving problematic. Here’s why.

Kite on a String

When Facebook launched, the concept of social media was still relatively new. They were a kite on a windy day with maybe one or two other kites in the air at the time. So Mark Zuckerberg sends up his new kite and the winds are strong. Before long, other people want to play with it as well. Zuckerberg, wanting to expand on the idea, allows them to attach a string to the kite. These new users then tell their friends about it and they want to attach a string. What once was a kite that only Harvard students could attach their strings too, is now a massive one that’s got strings all over the world. A good analogy for Facebook. Like a real kite with over 2.23 billion strings, manning such a thing becomes unwieldy. It also doesn’t help that the once clear sky is now full of other kites, with other strings. When kites, and organizations, become that big, the people in charge stop seeing the minute details. They hire other people to take care of those things for them. They turn their focus to the bigger picture. It’s no longer about a small kite with only a few million strings. When it’s that small, a handful of people can manage the day-to-day tasks of keeping the kite in the air and keeping the users happy. It’s now about keeping something so big aloft, keeping the users happy, not letting other kites swoop in and cut strings, and making sure international governments are okay with that thing in their airspace.

The Cambridge Analytica String

Back in 2014, Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm in Great Britain, began to check each string holder. Or, to keep with the metaphor, they read the string- every strand. Some strands are meant to be public. This is, after all, social media. Some strands were not meant to be read by outside parties. Minor details like people’s personal information. Cambridge Analytica read the strands and used that information in their consulting. This is unethical. Worse than that, the British government argued that Facebook should have done more to keep something like this from happening. Facebook has since been fined. In reaction to the fine, they’ve rolled out new algorithms, procedures, policies, and methods of protecting people’s data. To keep the kite in the air, in an ethical way, Facebook is working harder to keep people from reading all the strands in the strings that attach to the kite. It’s a new direction. Directing something with 2.23 billion users, be a kite or an organization, is going to take some hard work.

The Stock String

With the Cambridge Analytica Scandal three months old, Facebook released a report on the status of their kite-flying. It did not sit well with investors. Investors were worried about the decline in new users, and that new apps and policies had hurt revenue growth. Facebook’s loss of $119 billion in one day may the biggest single-day loss in history. Something that big may seem like writing on the wall for Facebook. The beginning of the end. It may not be.

The Future String

To recover from the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Facebook implemented a slew of new efforts to better protect users’ privacy. For a while, it seemed as if every day there was a new notification on the newsfeed that “Facebook cares about your privacy.” That was why. It’s calmed down now, but it’s not completely over. These new measures by Facebook are a part of a larger shift in the company’s direction. Now Facebook is working to keep their users’ information more guarded and use it less for advertising and third-party companies. This direction means that ad revenues will go down, as already indicated in Facebook’s most recent earnings report. Couple that with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, and it’s natural that such a hit would happen. Maybe not as bad as $119 billion. For Facebook to stick to their goals of greater protection is admirable, if a little late in the game. Investors and analysts aren’t too worried either. While it was a one-hundred-nineteen Billion dollar drop, Facebook is getting adjusted to new internal policies. Advertisers and third-parties are still catching up as well. With this new direction, Facebook is working to drive up engagement with their users’, a better idea than just inundating the newsfeed with ads. And when your newsfeed becomes less cluttered by these pointless ads, it’s a welcome sight.

Pull the String

With Facebook taking this new direction, the future is full of interesting opportunities.

A Shift in Social Media

Social media, for all its positive attributes, is somewhat annoying. Instead of interacting with human beings, we’re interacting with virtual representations of people. This is helpful for staying in touch with people who live far away, or for celebrities and politicians. It’s not helpful for the people who are in the same room. Facebook could be on the cutting edge of the next trend in social media. Less time staring at a screen and more time doing the things that get posted on newsfeeds. How Facebook will manage to do that is anybody’s guess. Given the amount of brain power they employ, it’s well within their reach.

More Ethical Business Practices

Facebook got caught for doing something bad and is now trying to rectify the situation. It’s a long road, but Facebook can stand as an example of what to do before a company runs into an ethical dilemma. And how to pay attention to third-party users and what they end up using the data for. With the world becoming more and more digital, data seems to be the currency. Not in the sense of blockchain and cryptocurrency. In the sense that people’s lives are getting reduced to ones and zeros. When everything about a person can simply be downloaded, the issue becomes “who can we trust.” Facebook is working to prove that they can be trusted with that information. If they can pull it off, then they’ll be back on the rise as more and more people will entrust them with their personal data.

Tie the String

Before you can connect to social media, you must be able to connect to the internet. By checking out the best Spectrum internet packages you can feel safe knowing you’re getting a secure connection with our providers. Because what good is it if you get the best speeds but are not confident your information is secure? When it comes to that, you’re probably better off going outside and flying a kite.

Google Gets a Grammar Check

For those without a Microsoft 365 account, Google Docs does a passable-to-decent job of creating a document. It doesn't have a grammar check feature...yet.

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Google Gets a Grammar Check
For those without a Microsoft 365 account, Google Docs does a passable-to-decent job of creating a document. It comes free with all Gmail accounts as part of G-Suite, so it’s nice to know it’s there when a document program is needed in a pinch. It has a big flaw though. No grammar check feature.

Grammar Misses

There are those times when one is writing a document, that the words are flowing as fast as thoughts. The fingers blur over the keys. And words appear on the screen. Then comes the editing. Reading along, sentence by sentence, discovering thoughts made tangible in a flurry of activity- but what’s this? Is there supposed to be an apostrophe for “its” or not? Small mistakes like this, grammatically, happen all the time. Thanks to grammar check features, they’re quickly solved and reduce the amount of time it takes to edit a document. As a writer, I speak to the helpfulness of these things as I have to write constantly every day for work and for pleasure. Grammar check features, though helpful, are not 100% secure though. Which is why having a second set of eyes is always a good idea. For writers like me, however, this sometimes a luxury. For Google to start implementing this feature into Docs means there will be another option available to match Microsoft Word. There’s no news of Docs becoming a fee-based service. That means another word processing application that can check grammar and spelling will likely attract a lot of attention.

Microsoft Word

Everyone knows Word. It’s often listed under “required skills” on a job application. Should you find yourself working in the publishing industry, you’ll discover Microsoft Word is the program you’ll end up working with the most. Queries coming in a format other than Word are quickly tossed out. Word, as of this writing, has the most sophisticated grammar check feature available to the public. If you’re using the most recent version of Word, you’ll notice the double-blue lines underneath words or phrases that are spelled correctly. If they were misspelled, they’d have that red, squiggly line underneath. No, the double-blue line is for grammar. Left click anywhere on that double-blue line and a pop-up window will appear with suggestions that are grammatically correct. Microsoft has worked on this grammar check feature for years. A big reason for its level of sophistication is because Microsoft launched Word back in the eighties. Ever since then, they’ve been working to improve the program. I may not have been the best student in English (I was worse in math), but after years of writing, I can say with confidence, that my grammar is much better because of my experience. It’s the same with Microsoft Word.

Grammarly

I work primarily in Word. The rough draft of this article was written in Word, in fact. To post my work, however, I go through applications that don’t have Word’s years of experience to check my grammar. As a hedge against possible embarrassment, I’ve signed up for the free version of Grammarly. At first, my pride prevented me from doing this. I had Microsoft Word, after all, why go with a young upstart? That pride, however, went away quickly when I realized there was no grammar check feature installed on the software used for our website. I hastily signed up for the free version of Grammarly. Unlike Word, Grammarly uses an AI to check my work. Grammarly, in their own words, uses a sophisticated artificial intelligence system to analyze each sentence. Now, on every email, social media comment, or online form that I fill out, a spinning green circle waits for me to finish so it can check if I’ve been grammatically correct. Not politically correct, spiritually correct, but grammatically correct. When done, it’ll turn red with a number on it, stating how many offenses to grammar that I’ve committed. I have yet to write something grammatically correct the first time through. I guess I’m still human then. Grammarly is helpful that way. It does not, however, work with Google Docs.

Google Docs

Google Docs does have a spell-check feature. This is basic and easy to install. It’s simply a dictionary app hooked up the word processing program to check my spelling against its database of words. Soon, Google will roll out their grammar check feature. In the beginning, it will only be available to business customers. If your company uses Google heavily, then contact the G-Suite administrator to have it unlocked on your profile…that is, when it rolls out. This grammar check feature doesn’t have the years of experience that Word has. Instead, it’s based on Google Translate. As it’s been described, Google will be using the same technology they use for their Google Translate app. This technology translates multiple languages, using machine translation. What Google has done here is plug in “perfect grammar” into the “translate to” field. Your writing will fill in the “translate from” field. It’s a clever use of the technology. How well it does in catching every grammatical mistake remains to be seen. But, as some great writer said: “Nothing ventured is nothing gained.” Maybe it was Chaucer?

On Writing

To me, Google Docs getting a grammar check feature is big news. To others, it’s a passing piece of news. Those are the types of people who don’t check their Dictionary App every day to learn the “Word of the Day.” Today it’s blinkered, by the way. Having a program check your grammar as you write is a tool that does more for you than you realize. Before something like this existed, a real person had to sit and double check your writing. And they usually had a well-worn copy of a style guide sitting next to them as they did this. Automation has taken this away and AI appears to be taking it over. Though this is good news, don’t mistake AI as the savior of writing. While Artificial Intelligence can do things for you, it can not- try as it might- speak for you. That’s something you do for yourself. And writing is a way to do that. With a grammar check feature, whether it be in Word, Google Docs, or Grammarly, you can hedge against sounding idiotic. But, to sound genuine, that’s something that can only be done by you and no one else. One last note, whether you write online, or write in Word and then copy-paste it into an online platform, make sure your internet is fast and reliable. Check out the best Spectrum internet bundles to see what’s available in your area and how much you can save. Then get to writing!

1 Cool Technique to Breathe Away Frustration

When you're angry,the worst thing someone can say to you is “calm down,just breathe okay!”This isn’t sound advice. Try this breathing technique instead.

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1 Cool Technique to Breathe Away Frustration
During those moments of extreme frustration, anger, or confusion, the worst thing someone can say to you is “calm down, just breathe okay!” This isn’t sound advice. “Never in the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.” This quote has shown up in various permutations across the internet. Be it Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or some other social media platform, someone has said this. Or put it in a meme. Commanding someone to calm down isn’t going to work. It'll likely have the opposite effect.

What to Do?

There is nothing wrong with getting angry, frustrated, or confused. A weird push has gone out these days to “not let things get to you.” While that would be great, we live in an imperfect world. We’re imperfect people. You’re going to get angry. Don’t run from it. (On the flip side, don’t use it as an excuse to get mad about anything and everything) Instead, know that people, events, even movies, will make you angry. When that happens, and it feels as if the whole world is against you… Or you can’t believe someone can be that stupid… Or the bottom fell out… Breathe.

A “Secret” Breathing Technique

This breathing technique, believed to be popularized by the Navy Seals, uses a natural function of your own body to interrupt and reset your most powerful resource. It’s your mind. By breathing, adjusting the rhythm and pace of your breathing, your mind will react in a positive way. At first, this was called a “secret” technique, but given there’s plenty of articles, posts, and even this clip- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq5EOFWYDCI -it’s safe to say the technique isn’t all that secret anymore. What matters is practicing this technique and utilizing it when you read about yet another politician saying something stupid.  

How to Breathe

Mark Divine, the author of the Time article above, dubbed it “Box Breathing.” (I’m not sure who came up with the technique, but it gained in popularity after that article) Inhale for four seconds. Hold your breath for four seconds. Exhale for four seconds. Hold for four seconds. Repeat. And continue to repeat until you feel your head clear. (Tom Wolfe, the instructor in the clip, uses a five count. The four-count has worked for me. Try out both to see which one is more effective for you) I speak from experience when I say that this does help, indeed, clear my head. Once my heart rate slows, I’m able to be more rational. I can recall a few specific times that I wasn’t “calm” after doing the Boxed Breathing. I was more rational though, so that’s a plus! Make sure you don’t do a long count though. Unless you want to pass out. That would be a little extreme.

More Than Just Calming Down

Boxed Breathing, if you want to keep calling it that, is helpful for more than just clearing your head. This technique is useful for stressful situations of any kind. When I’m writing and the words just aren’t coming, I sometimes focus on my breathing to clear my head. Once my head is cleared, the words come easier. It’s not a “magic bullet” for any sort of anxiety, but a tool to help take the edge off. I’ve also used a modified version for running. Don’t do a four count, but a three or a two-count. I’ve tried it on runs before and even did it this morning to confirm this hypothesis. My head does clear a little and I’m able to work past the pain in my legs to keep going. This is how I’ve managed to improve my pace. I’m no cross-country star, but it’s at least getting me through my half-marathon training. We’ll see if it helps when I run the entire 13.1 miles. Boxed Breathing is also helpful for tests. A nice little side-gig I had was proctoring tests. Texas has these standardized tests twice a year. For a good day’s pay, I got to proctor and monitor students testing. One such student, whom I was informed had anxiety issues, would breathe in a certain rhythm. She started this before the test began and continued until she completed it. Then she looked very relieved. I’m not sure if it was Boxed Breathing, but it worked for her.

Prep

There’s no need to prepare for this, it just takes focus to time the breathing. It can be used in anticipation of those special events where you know you can get aggravated. Start timing your breathing—in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four—and keep that up as long as necessary. If you keep you breathing quiet, no one will notice. Another situation you can use it in is when that “special” someone starts talking and your blood immediately starts boiling. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four. Repeat. They can keep talking while you work to keep your head clear. When they’re done spouting whatever insanity they take as fact, you’ll be ready. You can then add your opinion, or maybe not say anything at all. And just walk away. Boxed Breathing is a helpful tool that requires no extra gizmos or apps to use, just a little practice. There are other breathing techniques, from the Navy Seals and other fitness professionals, that you can use to keep your head clear in the moment. Just make sure to bundle your internet first. Look for the best Spectrum internet deals in your area so you can save money, time, and frustration. And the next time someone stupidly tells you to “calm down,” you’ll already be breathing and clearing your head so you can articulate exactly what you’re feeling. As well as how ignorant they are.