thank you, wolf and rod, for your very kind comments. I really appreciate them. I have no new suggestions---everything I read here was as good as it gets. So I just tried to give some positive suggestions (or bypasses). Thanks so much again...I had carrots for dinner. I was so inspired, I wrote an opera...

And Wolf: When I started to read your experience in the Piggly Wiggly, I honestly thought you were starting a new tale...it's great fodder for something! I realized by the end that you were serious, of course, but it's right out of a mythic tale...the mystery dagger that can cut through rare metals, w/ feathers from a bird no one can place...But if you should ever write it---and this is just a personal point of view---you should lose the piggly wiggly---not a great name for a galactic myth. (See, if I wrote it, I would have one of my characters turn to me halfway through the tale, and say: "Uh, can we lose the piggly wiggly??? The name doesn't make it, it ya know what I mean..." And he'd walk away muttering, "I gotta get into a decent tale...") (I always say, you got a problem with your prose? Have a character chew you out. It's quick, it's cheap, and you can always blame the character if no one likes your writing...) Please post what you found out about the dagger: I'm genuinely curious. Even if it came from a fantasy game shop (accg to hborre), it's pretty amazing that it cut through your car...I just love that whole chain of events...

One other thing (as long as I've lost this thread entirely): When Rod talks about his "Weapons Research and Testing Team," he ain't screwin' around, jack, in case you didn't know...I don't know if you know this, but in addition to his 2000000 computers, motherboards, fatherboards, monitors, 3-way talk radios and NASA cockpits, he's got an atomic centrifuge (i've seen pictures), a particle collider, at least one launch pad (a gift from NORAD), and several corpses of babylonian kings and queens. (I have no clue how they got there, but his digging up his backyard "for the pipes"---wink, wink? Riiiiight. The man's up to something is all I'm sayin'. And that's all just his basement, btw. (You can see why he wants to move...) Actually, when I put it all together, you two are creeping me the hell out. Ya know how you get to know some people and suddenly you realize they're not 'quite right'? Well you guys do the math...that's all I'm sayin'.........

Anyway, cheap and uncalled-for insults aside, thanks for your responses, and I truly hope that the many great suggestions that preceded me will have a positive impact. Running an arts site must be unwieldy at times, but there's a lot of love and inspiration here, and I hope it wins out over everything else. Have a good day! Take care, m