Author: Gluplock

Aliens like coffee – and we have the proof!

Gluplock

Do aliens like coffee? Of course they do. It’s the most awesome hot beverage in the galaxy, after all. And we believe extra-terrestrials are visiting Earth to trade for it, and we can prove it. We even have pictures! All those UFO sightings are really aliens coming here to shop for coffee.

Jack Winters, Book 1
Galactic Smugglers series, Book 1

As I’ve written previously, UFO’s are just aliens looking for coffee. Consider the following syllogism based on known facts:

  1. Premise one: Coffee is the most awesome beverage in the galaxy.
  2. Premise two: All intelligent beings love coffee.
  3. Inescapable conclusion: Therefore aliens love coffee.

Premise one and two are simple facts that all rational people will freely admit. Considering these facts together, the chain of logic is irrefutable and therefore the conclusion we arrive at is unavoidable. UFOs must be aliens looking for coffee. It’s only logical!

Fact!! Aliens like coffee!

I challenge anyone to refute the soundness of this logic. We all know coffee is the most popular drink in the world, for good reason. It’s awesome. All smart people know this, and any alien capable of traversing inter-stellar space to get here must also be highly intelligent. They know how to build spaceships, after all. Therefore, they must be here for the coffee.

Here’s more photographic evidence:

When aliens come for coffee, they bring the entire family

They come in peace

The good news is we can be pretty confident that their intentions are peaceful. How can we be so sure? Well, it’s simple. To put it in a nutshell, buying a cup of coffee is going to be much cheaper than an inter-stellar war.

Think about it: An inter-planetary war is going to be pretty expensive. It cost the western alliance 4 trillion dollars just to invade Iraq, a small country on our own planet just a few thousand miles away. If it costs that much just to invade a country a short distance away, think how much an inter-planetary war would cost!

Buying coffee is cheaper than inter-planetary invasions

It would be much cheaper to just buy the coffee from us. If I can do the math, I’m pretty sure an intelligent visitor from space can also do the math. They’re not stupid. Also, they wouldn’t want to risk ruining the Earth’s climate, which is perfect for growing coffee. Inter-planetary war is sure to wreak havoc on the environment, to say the least, which would put the world’s coffee harvest at risk. No intelligent being would take that chance.

So we can all relax, order another latte and get back to solving our Wordle puzzle for the day. The aliens aren’t here to start a war. They will be down at the local shopping centre disguised as humans buying coffee.

Galactic coffee smugglers are coming to Earth…

Kobo
Apple
Smashwords
Here they’ve been photographed shopping for coffee at my local grocery

I’m boycotting Amazon as of today #BoycottAmazon

Gluplock

I’ll keep this short and to the point: As of today, I’ve removed all my books from Amazon. There’s a massive grassroots boycott of America, and in particular Amazon, Walmart and Tesla spreading through Canada, Europe and even America, and I’ve joined it.

The reasons are pretty straightforward, really. I won’t bother listing everything that’s wrong with Trump, Bezos and the Republicans – that would be an exceptionally long and tedious list. Besides, most of you will no doubt be as familiar as I am with Trump’s daily stupidities, so why repeat it here.

So I’ll just hit a few high points, especially as they relate to Canada and our friends:

  • Donald Trump continues to insult Canada, with jokes about being the 51st state. We don’t think it’s funny and have no interest in joining that seriously messed up country ruled by a clown.
  • Trump has stopped all aid to Ukraine, a friendly democracy fighting for it’s life against an evil, blood-thirsty dictator. Then he accused Ukraine of starting the war and refused to say that Russia invaded them. He’s clearly siding with Russia.
  • He has threatened a NATO ally Denmark (Greenland) and Panama with military action to get what he wants.
  • He has launched an unwarranted trade-war with my country in an attempt to bully us into submitting to his demands for annexation. That’s never going to happen and Canadians don’t like bullies.

Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, continues to support Trump. Bezos and his tech bros have clearly shown that they are more interested in kissing up to an authoritarian in order to get richer, than they are in the welfare of their own country and its people.

I’ve been an author for thirty years and first self-published “Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte” on Amazon in 2014. Since then I’ve published 9 titles on Amazon in both print and digital formats. In the spirit of #BoycottAmazon I’ve removed all my books from that platform.

Along with thousands of other Canadians, I’ve also cancelled my subscription to Amazon Prime and stopped all purchasing from that platform, as well as all ‘made in America’ products.

Jeff Bezos’ support for Trump is cowardly and unjustifiable. Hopefully America will regain it’s senses soon, before it’s too late. Until then, no more Amazon.

Here is a great article about Amazon, why Jeff Bezos deserves to be boycotted, and a list of his companies. At the end of this article are also lists of Zuckerberg’s and Musk’s companies and why they should be boycotted:

The Complete List of Jeff Bezos Companies.

Follow this link for more information on the Amazon Boycott:

I’m very pleased to make all of my books available on Kobo, Apple and Smashwords. I will be exploring other platforms as well in the future.

Kobo
Apple
Smashwords

Thanks and have a great day!

Visit me on Bluesky.

Have you ever wondered what you’d have done if…

Gluplock

~

That’s right. You’re doing it. Now.

Sorry, I can’t stay neutral any more. I can’t just write fun fan fiction about coffee loving aliens and remain silent about what’s happening. Because what’s going on is so extreme, so mind-boggling awful, that neutrality and lukewarmness is betrayal and cowardice.

This is not the time to be neutral or lukewarm.

Trump is threatening my country Canada, and attack other friendly allies like Denmark and Panama. And he’s attacking our NATO friends while cozying up to Russia who’s naked aggression against Ukraine is utterly disgusting and inhumane.

Many Germans in the 1930’s weren’t necessarily fanatical Nazi’s, they were just lukewarm and opted for a ‘neutral’ position on the political events of the day. They didn’t want to “get involved”, and thought they’d stay safe if they didn’t stick their necks out.

When dealing with fascists, that strategy doesn’t work, and it didn’t end so well for many of them …

From time to time I come across someone in my circle of friends, family, neighbours or church folk who are still sitting on the fence, or just otherwise lukewarm when it comes to politics, who haven’t yet grasped the gravity of the moment we are in.

So in this blog I’m offering a list of people who are doing a fantastic job of keeping us updated on the news of the day with informative and helpful insights on the day’s events. If you’re not sure what to make of today’s craziness, the best thing you can do is get informed.

I offer this list of recommendations to give those still on the fence, or who aren’t sure, a gentle nudge in the right direction. I’ve found these contributors to be extremely knowledgeable, informative, and well researched. They offer solid, useful information on today’s news and events, backed up with facts.

In the future I will be making updates to this list on substack here, rather than maintain this same list in two different places.

Recommendations & Links – Independent News Media

The Atlantic is excellent: https://www.theatlantic.com/

The Guardian is an independent paper, not owned by a billionaire: https://www.theguardian.com/world

The Kyiv Independent: https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com

Ground News: https://ground.news/ Based in Ontario Canada. Very balanced look at all the news around the world, reporting on what different news sources are saying about the same story to get a balanced looked between right, left, centre, liberal, conservative, etc.

MeidasTouch on BlueSky and YouTube is extremely good. Informative, fact-based coverage of the news, and they bring the receipts.

https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com

https://www.youtube.com/@MeidasTouch

On Substack:

The Contrarian https://contrarian.substack.com/

Charlie Angus / The Resistance https://charlieangus.substack.com/

Du Mez CONNECTIONS https://kristindumez.substack.com/, By Kristen Kobe Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne

Robert Reich https://robertreich.substack.com/

Letters from an American https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/, She does a daily roundup of the days news that is excellent and informative.

Juno News – Canadian politics: https://www.junonews.com/

Tim Snyder, author of On Tyranny, an excellent summary of fascism: https://snyder.substack.com/

BlueSky:

I find the following extremely informative, helpful and well researched on BlueSky:

You can also find most of these folks on YouTube as well.

The Kyiv Independent: https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com

Kristen Du Mez: https://bsky.app/profile/kkdumez.bsky.social

Rachel Maddow: https://bsky.app/profile/maddow.msnbc.com

Russell Moore, senior editor of Christianity Today: https://bsky.app/profile/drmoore.bsky.social

Charlie Angus, NDP MP: https://bsky.app/profile/charlieangus104.bsky.social

CAN – senior editor at MeidasTouch. https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: https://bsky.app/profile/aoc.bsky.social

Anne Applebaum, author of several books on autocracy:  https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social

Get her books: Autocracy Inc. and The Twilight of Democracy https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/search?q=anne+applebaum&search-button=&lang=null

You can find me on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/mikemanto.bsky.social and Substack https://michaelmanto.substack.com/.

I’ve also got a list of substack recommendations on my Substack blog: https://michaelmanto.substack.com/recommendations

Today’s good mood brought to you by coffee!

Gluplock

The days are short and the nights long and dark this time of year up here in the Great Canadian North. And to compound the dreariness, the news has turned into a daily horror show that just keeps getting worse and worse.

There are times when I feel a knot in my stomach after spending a few minutes perusing the news, and it’s very hard not to fall into depression. It can be a real struggle to keep one’s mood upbeat, and I know I’m not alone in this. Millions of thoughtful people are deeply worried with the insanity being unleashed on the world by the Orange Fascist in America, and his oligarch buddies.

So to help lift our moods, in today’s blog I thought I’d share some fun facts and happy thoughts related to the world’s most awesome beverage.

I’m talking about coffee, of course!

Today’s Happy Thought

We’ve always known that coffee drinkers are generally much more interesting and intelligent people, especially when compared to tea drinkers. I think we can all agree that’s just a simple fact.

Today’s good mood brought to you by coffee

But there’s more! The really great news is that coffee drinkers also live longer!

It’s true. There is now scientific evidence that drinking coffee improves your chances for a longer life than the non-coffee drinking crowd. According to researchers at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and early death.

According to Peter Kistler, head researcher at the Institute, “moderate intake of ground, instant and caffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle…”

Amen brother! Your preaching to the choir now!

For today’s happy thought, have a look at the full CNN article: Coffee drinkers live longer!

🙂

But wait – there’s more. Not only do we live longer, but according to Healthline there are several other health benefits.

  1. Coffee boosts your energy.
  2. Lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes.
  3. Supports brain health. (No surprise here. We’ve suspected all along that coffee drinkers are smarter.)
  4. Promotes weight management.
  5. Coffee is linked to lower rates of depression.
  6. Protects against liver conditions.
  7. Improves heart health.
  8. Lowers risk of death from cancer.
  9. Enhances athletic performance.

You can read the full article here: 9 evidence based unique health benefits of coffee.

For some totally not serious, light-hearted fun escapism, check out my Galactic Coffee Smugglers series…

Kobo
Apple
Smashwords

Now go and have a great day!

You’re welcome!

What’s better than a good book and a cup of coffee?

A Spaceship for Hire is now available on Kobo and Apple Ebooks

Gluplock

The third in my Galactic Smuggler’s series, “A Spaceship for Hire” is now published and available in Ebook on all major Ebook sellers.

Book 3 in my Galactic Smuggler’s series

Book #3 picks up where “Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship” leaves off, continuing the story of Jack and Donna and their nice alien friends.

Exiled from Earth and unable to return home, Jack makes a living running a small cafe on a distant planet at the edge of the galaxy. But when marauding space pirates start raiding galactic trade routes, Jack and his alien friends find themselves cut-off from the rest of the galaxy.

It looks like Jack is soon to be out of business and out of money, and with war spreading he’s unable to go for help.

Help eventually comes from a very unlikely person: Donna, his ex-girlfriend. She’s learned how to fly an old alien spaceship that’s been abandoned in the woods behind her farm, and agrees to help Jack and his friends out.

Jack really, really, doesn’t want to go back into space, but he’s got no choice. Jack, Donna and a band of alien friends leave in Donna’s spaceship to go for help.

Along the way, the unlikely couple discover that they still have feelings for each other. But before they can start living their happily-ever-after, they first have to fight off space pirates, stop an inter-galactic war from spreading, and try to find their way back to Earth for another load of coffee.

This is a ride you don’t want to miss!

I think you’ll really enjoy “A Spaceship for Hire”. I’m really excited about it, and I think you’ll find that it’s a fun read.

Available in Ebook on Apple, Kobo, and more …

Drop me a line and let me know what you think. Now, go find some friends and have a great day!

When real life mirrors apocalyptic sci-fi

Gluplock

I had a strange experience with life imitating art while writing Octavia Seven.

Octavia Seven is my time-travel romance about Octavia, an anthropologist from the 23rd century who travels back to our time. Her mission was to study life in our day before a killer virus wipes out humanity, leaving very few survivors. She was supposed to just conduct a few studies then return to her own time before the pandemic starts. But of course in fiction it can never be that simple, and she meets Jake, falls in love, and that’s when things start to get complicated for her. Jake can’t return with her, and she can’t stay with a killer virus on the way…

The real thing is never as much fun as fiction

I finished the first draft well before Covid-19, long before there was any hint of the real pandemic that was about to hit us in 2020.

I set the manuscript aside for a bit, fully intending on going through it a couple more times before sending it off to my proof-reader.

However, before I could finish the manuscript and get it to my proof-reader, Covid arrived and a real pandemic started sweeping the world. In those early days of covid, we had no idea how bad it may get, but as the bodies started piling up I lost all interest in my story, and I stopped working on it.

A bit too close to home

In my fictional story, I even had the virus starting in China. It was a bit too close to home, and I dropped the project, not knowing if I would ever finish it.

During those first few months of covid it felt like we were living in some kind of sci-fi plot, and I lost all interest in apocalyptic movies and fiction, because, well, it felt like we were really in one.

This is what it felt like in 2020

We got through it, and thankfully it didn’t turn out to be an apocalypse. Last year things started to get back to something more akin to normalcy, and over time I was able to gain some perspective on Octavia Seven.

I dusted off the story and got back to work on the manuscript. I really loved the characters and the story and felt like it was worth publishing, so I finished my re-writes and sent it off to my editor for proof-reading.

But I made some edits to the ending.

Who needs an apocalypse? They’re really not all that much fun…

I’m really not a fan of apocalyptic fiction any more. We have grandkids – I won’t tell you how many because the overall number is a bit ridiculous, but let’s just say we have several adorable grandkids who are still pretty little. Four of them are five and under. The thought of them picking through the ruins of a devastated Earth, scavenging to survive and hunting rats for their next meal, absolutely horrifies me. Only people who don’t have kids could possibly enjoy writing that kind of garbage.

So after living through Covid, I re-wrote the ending of Octavia Seven. It’s now a time-travel story about how love can change history for the better.

I’m a huge fan of happy endings. Who needs bad endings that leave you depressed? If I wanted to be depressed, I can read CNN for that.

You’ll likely need some cookies while reading your favorite fan-fiction. My favorite chef, Jenn Segal, has some fantastic cookie recipes. Check out her website here. Go and bake some before sitting down to read.

Have a great day!

Canuckle Daily Word Puzzle Answer. What’s Your Best Guess?

Gluplock

It’s official, I’m a Canuckle nerd (nerdle?/Cannerdle?). In today’s blog I’m finally coming to terms with that and admitting it to myself and the world. My wife is already planning to have friends and family over later tonight for an intervention.

Canada’s favourite word puzzle game

I love Wordle, the 5-letter daily word puzzle game that’s taken the world by storm. And the Canadian version of it, Canuckle, is just as much fun for Hosers like me. For those of you who may not know, Canuckle is a Wordle spinoff with a Canadian theme – 5-letter words like BACON, CANOE, MOOSE, KAYAK, MAPLE, BACON, SYRUP, BACON, … etc, etc. You get the idea. (Oh, did I mention bacon?)

Wordle in 1! 

It’s true. A couple of weeks ago I finally got the coveted Wordle in 1!

On May 4, the Wordle answer for the day was TRAIN. Fun fact, it was also the word of the day for a Wordle spin-off, Canuckle. I did Canuckle first, and got it in 3. Then I turned to Wordle, and thought, what the heck, I may as well use TRAIN as my starting word. And BAM! My first and only time getting Wordle in 1.

You have to be a Wordle addict to appreciate the excitement, but I rode that high for a week!

Wordle in 1 on May 4, 2022

The Best List of Canuckle Word Puzzle Starting Words

Since I got hooked on Canuckle a couple of months ago, I started keeping a private list of words which I think are very good candidates for future Canuckle answers. In today’s blog, I’m sharing my list with other Canuckle addicts. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Maybe we could start having meetings in church basements…

I claim no insider knowledge. This list is simply what I believe to be likely candidates for future Canuckle answers. I’ve made a note next to some of the words explaining why I think they make good puzzle answers.

You can find the list of my best Canuckle puzzle starting words here!

The Real Answer History Archive

Just in case you’ve been missing out on the fun, I’m also maintaining a complete archive of past Canuckle puzzle answers, starting with the very first puzzle back in February 10, 2022.

If you are a fellow Canuckle nerd, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

A little coffee humor to lighten your day

Gluplock
This is how I feel if I get up in the morning and there’s no coffee…

In today’s blog I thought I’d share a humour meme I created this morning. The idea came to me when I found this retro photo of a screaming woman on the internet and thought – that’s how I’d feel if I got up in the morning and there was no coffee. Any true coffee lover will easily relate to the humour in this image.

The first thing I do when I get out of bed is head downstairs into the kitchen and start the coffee. And then I stand there and wait for enough coffee to appear in the carafe to pour a cup. Fortunately my coffee maker has a ‘pause ‘n pour’ feature, otherwise it would get rather messy.

In nice weather I’ll take my coffee and laptop outside to the back deck and listen to the birds while writing or reading the news. Unfortunately in Canada the weather is crap 9 months of the year, in which case I go into the living room, turn on the gas fireplace, and sit next to the fire.

I can’t imagine starting the day without coffee. I’m not sure how non-coffee drinkers do it, but I think the government should fund a research program to study them. We need to find the answer to how they function, if not to confirm they’re human.

I find it very relaxing to make humorous memes, especially if they are coffee related. Kind of goes with the territory when your ‘thing’ is escapist adventures featuring coffee loving alien smugglers.

Here are a few more humour memes I’ve made.

Have a great day.

Why we need pulp fiction now more than ever

Gluplock
The dangers of doomscrolling

I’ve been spending a lot off time doomscrolling since Russia launched its brutal and unjust invasion of Ukraine, and I can’t recall when I’ve ever felt angrier with what I’m seeing in the news.

With the war in Ukraine, the global pandemic, the climate crisis, severe weather events, and the election cycles in America that never seem to end, there is no shortage of bad news to doomscroll through.

As a writer of escapist pulp fiction, I wondered if anyone would still be interested in the kind of light-hearted novels I like to write. Why would anyone want to read stories about aliens coming to Earth looking for coffee? How could I spend my time writing about such frivolous topics with all the truly serious crap hitting the fan around the world?

So for a while I stopped work on my current project – a sequel to my humorous sci-fi series about aliens who love coffee. I didn’t feel it was the right time for writing light-hearted escapism.

It’s a very good time for light-hearted escapism

But then I thought about how popular dime novels were during the American Civil War, which featured escapist adventure stories. And during the Great Depression cheap adventure stories in the form of ‘pulp’ fiction were hugely popular.

Dime novels became very popular during the darkest years of the Civil War

During the dark days of the Civil War and the global depression, people needed the break and low-cost escapist novels came into their own as an industry.

We are in a similarly dark period now, and it’s precisely in times like this that low-cost escapism is needed more than ever. We all need to take a break from doomscrolling and find a way to unplug from everything that’s going on and relax. Pulp fiction, escapist adventures, humorous sci-fi – whatever kind of reading you prefer – is a legitimate form of recreation. So I’ve taken up my pen once again and resumed writing.

Support a worthy charity

However, I still believe we should try to do what we can to help and not ignore what’s going on in the world. As a result, I’ve made some personal changes. Instead of doomscrolling, I’ve cut back drastically on my news consumption and started doing something practical. I started giving.

Recently I did some research into charities dedicated to assisting the people of Ukraine. The Washington Post and The Globe and Mail have both published lists of reputable charities supporting Ukraine.

Charities supporting Ukraine:

Don’t ignore what’s going on, but I think you may find it more rewarding to spend less time doomscrolling and more time doing something practical. I think one of the best ways most of us here in Western Europe, Canada and America can do that is by donating to charities supporting worthy causes.

Oh, and spend more time reading great adventure sci-fi about aliens who like coffee.

And that’s my rant for the day.

My New Time-travel Adventure is Here!

Gluplock

The girl from the future…

What does a girl do when she can’t tell anyone where she’s really from?

I’m excited about my latest novel – a fun blend of love, romance, dystopian future and time travel. It’s about Octavia, a woman from a dystopian future who has traveled back in time to our own day. She’s here on a mission: study us and learn how we lived prior to a deadly plague that almost destroys human life and brings on the dystopian world she grew up in.

Octavia never had a family, never knew a mother or father – she was raised on a eugenics farm by robots and impersonal guardians. She arrives in our time and meets Jake, the loving single father of an 11-year old girl, and it’s not long before they fall in love. For the first time in her life, Octavia becomes part of a real family. But she can never tell Jake that she’s from the future – how could he possibly believe it? And that’s not the only secret she has to keep from him.

But falling in love was not part of her mission plan, and the secrets she carries about herself and the terrible future awaiting them soon threaten to tear them apart.

I actually started writing this in 2016, thinking it would be fun to write a story about a world-wide pandemic and time-travel. I finished it prior to 2020 under a different title, and then covid-19 broke out. When covid-19 hit, I no longer felt like promoting a novel about a plague. Reading and writing stories about an apocalypse is fun until it starts to feel like you are really in one. So I shelved the project for a while.

In early 2021 I dusted it off and re-read it, and sent it to an editor for professional proof reading. I like the story and now that it looks like we are getting to the end of the covid-19 pandemic I feel good about publishing it.

It’s a fun, clean read with a feel-good ending. I’m a huge believer in happy endings… I mean, why read a book that leaves you depressed. I can go to CNN for that.

I hope you like reading the book as much as I liked writing it. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Available on Amazon

Octavia Seven Book Review