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  Yes, I’m ready for Godzilla Minus Zero. There's something to be said about a gigantic nuclear-irradiated lizard that terrorizes Tokyo with his flaming breath and big building-stomping feet. Yep. There's a new Godzilla movie coming this November. And it's in IMAX - which means we can see Godzilla in actual size. Wowie. To the average person, Godzilla films might seem like "you've seen one, you've seen them all" - guy in a rubber lizard su...

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  What the judges said about my 2026 Big E photography (and other) entries I do appreciate feedback on my photography entries. And this year's Competition Season has proven extremely fruitful. Several of my photos have earned prizes and silks, with two pieces - the macro shot Herbie Jr. :v) Was Here and the railroad composite shot A CO Railfan's Dream having the most success. With that in mind, the Big E sent me the judging results yesterday. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/16...

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  The Saturday Blogroll Recap, October 17 2026 Good morning, my wonderful blog readers. Time for our Saturday excursion into the great blogs and photos and stories from the people who populate my personal blogroll. They're good men and women, you should check out their works each week. But before we get started, I want to share a special request from one of the blogroll writers, the Bedlam Farm Journal. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/17/the-saturday-blogroll-recap-october-17-2026/

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  Make today your “Check Your Credit” day Long-time readers of my blog know that I am extremely scrupulous with my financial records. I've been the victim of identity theft and credit card compromise more than once; and I guard my financial records like they were the contents of Fort Knox. Which is why, once every year, I visit a site called annualcreditreport.com and download the record reports from the three major credit reporting bureaus - TransUnion, Equifax and… http://chuckthewrite...

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  K-Chuck Radio: When it was more than tainted love Yes, they had one hit in the United States. And yes, it seems like it was on the radio for ages. And then it disappeared. You rarely hear it on oldies stations the same way you would hear classic songs from their contemporaries. But all it takes it that one riff ... and it will bring you back to 1982. … http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/19/k-chuck-radio-when-it-was-more-than-tainted-love/

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  An Annie, a JaguarGator and a Urinating Tree I make no apologies for my football fandom. I support the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I think every other team in the NFL is a sad third-place at best squad. That being said ... the afternoon AFTER each week's NFL games, I search out three different YouTube content creators for their take on the week's big games. I start out with Annie Agar. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/20/an-annie-a-jaguargator-and-a-urinating-tree/

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  Operation Toy Train runs through Saratoga this November 14! Time to get excited for the holiday season. And for me, that means keeping an eye out for several "Holiday Train" runs throughout the area. And while I wait for the CPKC Holiday Train to make its 2026 excursion, I'm happy to report that the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson Railroad will make its own holiday excursion as part of the nationwide "Operation Toy Train" run. http://chuckthewrite...

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  St. John’s Lutheran meets the Kodak Panoram 3A When I shot the St. John's Lutheran Church in Cold Spring Harbor last week, I brought several cameras with me. My digital Nikon Df shooter got the first batch of photos, while at the same time I used, in rapid succession, my Kodak Panoram 3A super-ultrawide 125-year-old film shooter, my Krasnogorsk FT-2 35mm ultrawide ("Raskolnikov"), and my Nikon F2S 35mm weapon ("Nikon Athena"). http://chuckthewriter.b...

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  Patriotic Duty: The 1942 American Hockey League All-Star Game NOTE: This article originally appeared in 1997, in the pages of Hockey Ink! magazine. Before American troops were part of World War II, ice hockey already felt the effects of Europe’s terrible conflict. Canadian soldiers were already sailing to protect England, to help liberate France, to do whatever was necessary to stop the advancing Axis powers. By 1941, North American professional hockey teams wilted… http://chuckthewriter.blog/...

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  The Saturday Blogroll Recap, October 24 2026 What do you mean it's 29 degrees outside this morning? BRRRR Forget that, I'm staying inside and blogging about this week's great writers and photographers who currently populate this blog's sidebar blogroll. I can do that and hopefully the temperature outside will rise up above freezing. 😀 So let's get started. BLOGS FOR TASTE Jerry Papandrea's "DerryX" YouTube channel, " ht...

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  My BUILT 2026 entries were accepted BUILT is Historic Albany Foundation's charitable auction and fundraiser, and I've participated in the fundraiser for the past two decades. It's a personal sense of pride for me - to be able to take my photography and other crafts, and create artwork whose sales will help preserve the amazing and unique architecture that populates the Capital Region. Yesterday, I received news that my two submissions for BUILT were accepted, and will…...

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  Congrats to my bud Audley Stephenson I've known Audley Stephenson for the better part of sixteen years. We met when both of us were part of the National Basketball League of Canada - I was the league statistician, he worked his way from content creator to commissioner in a few short years. Even when the league finally folded in 2021, we stayed in touch. Audley began a side project where he would interview people about the power of positive thinking and positive living,… http://chuckthe...

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  Um … there’s a good reason why he cancelled his appearance at that convention. Eric Bauza might not be an obviously recognizable name to most people, but in the animation community he was a legend. He took over the voices of many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, after the passing of those characters' original voice, Mel Blanc. He's doing most of the Warner Bros. characters in the recent Coyote v. Acme… http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/27/um-theres-a-g...

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  A four-way personal choice for the Members’ Show In about ten days, I need to submit my entry for the 2026 Albany Center Gallery Members' Show. Each member is permitted to enter one artwork of his or her choosing, whether it's a painting or a sculpture or a photography project or what have you. And I'm still totally undecided as to what to enter this year. Because I have four possible entries ... http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/28/a-four-way-personal-choice-for-the-m...

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  Bimbo’s Initiation (1931) I am about to show you a 95-year-old cartoon that, for better or for worse, will absolutely blow your mind. It's surrealism on steroids. It's mind-bending and it's unnerving. And it even features a cameo from two of the greatest cartoon characters of all time. Brace yourself. This is the 1931 film "Bimbo's Initiation." Some background. In 1931, the Fleischer Studio was arguably one of the only true rivals to Walt Disney...

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  The important part of the Kordell Stewart HBO documentary that nobody talks about Kordell Stewart had an incredible career with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was drafted in the second round (60th overall) out of Colorado, and was a quarterback whose highlight reel drew scouts from all over. And during his time in Pittsburgh, he led the Steelers to two AFC Championship games, and earned Pro Bowl honors. Even today, his statistics make him the third most proficient QB in… http://chuckthewriter.blo...

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  The Saturday Blogroll Recap, September 26 2026 Gotta get up, gotta get at 'em, it's a big weekend for everybody. Trust me, we're heading into autumn and the leaves are starting to turn. Don't want to miss the beautiful fall foliage, do we? Okay, well, you can take at least ten minutes to go through this week's blogroll and see what my friends have written and photographed and talked about in their blogs. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/09/26/the-saturday...

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  If nothing else, go with “Jim Dandy.” After nearly two months of dating, Suzanne and I have reached the next step of our relationship. I met her friends. And by friends, I mean her buddies who sing all night at a karaoke bar. Yep. Chuck went karaoke. And usually, "karaoke" for me means my audience is the shower head, the steering wheel, or my computer monitor. No, seriously. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/09/27/if-nothing-else-go-with-jim-dandy/

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  Elegy for a Bastard If I told you that Benjamin Slattery passed away yesterday, you might feel some sadness, but then you would question who Benjamin Slattery was. He was better known among All Elite Wrestling fans as the highly intense and gymnastically gifted wrestler from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England - the Bastard PAC. Prior to his time in AEW, PAC wrestled in the WWE under the name of Adrian Neville, advertising himself as "The Man who Gravity Forgot." And he had a… http:...

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  Shoo-fly Ste. Marie, Ontario #pieatownorplace #HashtagGames

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  The Shame of Cornell University I'm still shaking my head in disgust at the news that came from Cornell University. Follow along with me on this. And trust me, this is disgusting. Apparently two years ago, a female student at Cornell University was at a party at a Cornell fraternity, Chi Phi. Prior to arriving, she had consumed some alcohol at her sorority, and would later arrive at Chi Phi looking for one of her friends. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/09/29/the-shame-of-cornell-unive...

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  Batman is not happy with me Ah, time to write another blog post. Up and at 'em. 17 years without a day off ... what shall I write about this morning? Wow. Seventeen straight years of blogging. Holy consistency, Batman ... "Mr. Miller ... we need to talk for a moment." About what? "Well, you seem to lean on a certain linguistic crutch in your blog. And the more you lean on it, the more it bothers me." http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/09/30/batman-is-no...

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  What am I going to do with a highland cow? I am not one to back down from a challenge. And when my girlfriend Suzanne showed me a new art crafting technique that she thought we would both have fun with - something called "punch needle" - I was intrigued. I mean, I have worked with fiber arts before, between latch hooks and yarn embroidery, so why not try something new? http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/01/what-am-i-going-to-do-with-a-highland-cow/

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  So here’s what I did with a highland cow Okay. Yesterday's blog post revolved around my plan to try the craft known as "punch needle" - essentially punching a string or yarn or floss through a fabric to create a pretty pattern upon it. And the plan was to do this while my girlfriend Suzanne and I watched the Pittsburgh Steelers football game yesterday. So at kickoff ... here's what I had. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/02/so-heres-what-i-did-with-a-highlan...

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  The Saturday Blogroll Recap, October 3 2026 Good morning, my blog family. Time once again for the recap of this week's photos and thoughts and words from the great bloggers on my personal blogroll. As you know, I set aside one day each week - Saturday - to share these with you. Hopefully this encourages you to visit their sites and see (and enjoy) their works. So let's get started, shall we? http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/03/the-saturday-blogroll-recap-october-3-2026/

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  The results at the Big E, 2026 edition Right at the beginning of this blog, I have to tell you this. My girlfriend Suzanne is a trooper. She went through every Big E tradition and superstition with me without batting an eyelash. Superstition #1 - get to the Big E as early as possible. That means leaving Albany at sunrise, so that we could park near the entrance. 90 minutes and a $10 parking fee later, we were in Springfield. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/04/the-results-at-the-big-e-2026-e...

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  The Kodak Panoram meets Herrington’s Pumpkins I'm still testing out this Kodak Panoram 3A camera - a camera so ancient, its tech support was probably authored by George Eastman himself. This camera is supposed to give me super-ultra-wide photos on 120 film stock (well, with a special modification to the camera's interior chassis), and the last time I tried it out ... the camera DID work, but the results were kinda meh. http://chuckthewriter.blog/2026/10/05/the-kodak-panoram-mee...

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  Buh-Bye, A Taste of Italy. The news hit last Sunday like a clean wash of rain over a sewer field. A Taste of Italy, the restaurant whose owners used Islamophobia and hurtful and bigoted rhetoric to attack a family who had just lost their autistic son in a tragic accident, is no more. The owners sold the lease on their Latham restaurant to another Italian eatery, La Familglia, who has already assumed ownership of the space and who will, in time, remove any and all Taste… http://chuckthewriter.b...

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  Chuck Force One has bushings and they hurt. One should never expect a new or used car to NOT have some previously undiagnosed mechanical issues. Trust me. The perfect car out of the box usually says "Hot Wheels" on the undercarriage. Every one of my cars has, at one time or another, picked up some sort of mechanical problem. Most of them were quickly remedied - my Chevrolet Cobalt SS (the "Blackbird") had some worn exhaust parts; the 2017 Chevrolet Volt (&amp...

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  “My Cousin Vinny” on the Royale with Cheese Movie Club For those who are new to my blog, the "Royale With Cheese Movie Club" features films that everybody in the world has seen - but I'm finally getting around to watching them. The blog feature is so named because it took me decades to get around to watching Pulp Fiction. Among other films. Last night, before I went to bed, I said to myself, "Self, you haven't watched a Royale with Cheese Movie Club fi...