The Introverted Detective

Internet safety is never a bad thing to write about. So here I am, giving you all a refresher course on today's internet safety. Let class begin.  Courtesy of katiecouric.com Nowadays you have to consider scammers, what is safe to post on social media, and how to identify fakes. Along with the basics of not blasting our contact information publicly and not posting personal information like bank accounts, we have to worry about AI too. It's a bit different than when you first learned it. Scammers get more clever and AI doesn't help.  I'm putting it in three categories for easy navigation. The first is scammers, the second is social media, and the last one is what you need to know about AI. The bell just rang. Let's start class.  Scammers Let's talk about psychological warfare. You need to know what they will try to do. Random phone calls asking for little things can lead to big things. The more they know about you, the worse it is. Don't engage. The more casu...

 Creative introverts or people with unique perspectives might all have a shared experience of being invisible in plain sight or not being taken seriously. At my old church invisibility was a reality every youth group meeting and I felt it didn't matter whether I was present or not. I'm not alone in this. I can even point to a movie reference - Alan from the Barbie movie. Let's talk about this.  Courtesy of Vulture.com It's happened to me before. I'm trying to tell a story. I'm coming to my point. I had a point. Someone interrupted and now the subject has flown off the table and into the trash can. Were they even listening? Maybe one person was. I'll now seek the lone listener out and talk to them alone. In fact, one on one is better than a group conversation because there is less chance of interruption. The person who interrupted? They won't hear my voice. The person who listens will hear my voice far more than the person who didn't let me finish. Th...

I played the newest Nancy Drew game! Today I review it for you, without spoilers.  Courtesy of progameguides.com Overall, it was much better than the last game they put out. It was beautiful, well thought out, had optional mini games, had the choice of classic and modern movement, and was a puzzle game (not just a living novel). Because I played this in almost one go, I suggest you pace yourself. Hubby and I fried our brains puzzle-wise. We stopped at the near end game and finished it later because we'd played it all day. Take your time. The puzzles are not as easy when you fry yourself, or easy at all. We cheated through some of it. I intend to play it slowly on my own to test whether the puzzles themselves or I was the problem in some cases. It is a lot of puzzles and talking to suspects. Don't forget to call people in this game.  I loved all the call-backs to the old games. They have pictures from old games in the cafe. They talk about her old cases. They even include puzzl...

 We've all heard the phrase "dress modestly", especially in a church context. The issue we face is how.  People have different definitions of "modesty", including some that voice their complaints to total strangers. This goes over like an atom bomb. Society has shoved us between the "be sexy" and "be modest" standards. Let's talk about what modesty really is.  1925 public indecency - with bathing suits Courtesy of Pinterest Today we're looking at this issue from a Christian standpoint. You'll see scripture references and get the perspective of me, a Christian. If you don't agree with my perspective we can agree to disagree. Now that we're all on the same page, let's move on. Modesty is referenced in the bible often, but we don't always look at the overall context. It's easy to cherry-pick verses to support your views. That's not what you are supposed to do. Any scripture listed in this blog has had the cont...

Unsettling characters make your audience think and get a little scared. Let's look at how to write those characters.  Tom Riddle  - Courtesy of Pinterest Examples of unsettling characters are some Bond villains, Federov from the book Argylle, and Tom Riddle from Harry Potter. If your skin crawls a bit when they enter the room or scene you've got an unsettling character. How do you write that well? That's today's topic.  Be aware that the ending of Where The Crawdads Sing is spoiled in the the section "unreliable narrator". You've been warned.  General Creep Factor You need to make your reader squirm. A character needs to set off alarm bells for your protagonist. First, we need to know what creep factor is. Simply put, creepy means a threat is perceived. They come in all shapes and sizes, from trying to cop a feel during a conversation to a smile that never reaches their eyes. But not all creep behavior can be helped because maybe they just look unsettling ...

 I'll give you a hint; it never happened on a bridge. Let's talk about the woman who murdered her husband over a bad game of bridge, and if there was more to it than a slap in the face in the middle of a bridge game.  Courtesy of sonofabandit.net We're in 1929. A woman and her husband are playing bridge with another couple. The woman makes a bad call and the husband slaps her across the face, despite an audience. The game ends. The other couple goes home. The woman shoots the husband and gets off with self-defense after a trial of national popularity (1931). She lives on into to the 90s and the whole event fades into obscurity. Bridge Table Murder? What's that?  Today we're talking about it, not only because I need to know headline events from the 1930s for my time travel research, but also because I'm fascinated. Shout out to Jim, my coworker, for putting this on my radar. Thanks, Jim! Some Background September 29 in 1929 John and Myrtle Bennett played rubber b...

 I'm sure you've done it. Have you considered reading a series like Star Wars or Star Trek only to not know what book is even first? Here's the post you need to see. We'll dive into Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, The Wheel of Time, and Ender's Game series to determine what order to read them in.  Courtesy of Abe Books To restate what series we are tackling, we have Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, The Wheel of Time, and Ender's Game. Two of these I wanted to read, but didn't know the order of. Finding the books isn't a problem, yet I'm afraid I'll pick up a book and be terribly confused because I picked up book five before I picked up book one. I'll go into each series individually, starting with a basic plot overview and ending with a concrete list, or link to a concrete list, of books in the right order.  Star Wars We know the basic plot of the movies, yet here I am saying there is even more to explore. The main storyline is about Luke Skywalker an...