Saturday, March 31, 2018

My Kind of Romance


    Call me sentimental, but this type of Romance appeals to me.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Art Appreciation Friday


    Two "Art Appreciation" memes this week.  Yooze are indeed blessed.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Book Excerpt for t he Day


    I sat on the bed abruptly.  Where had that come from?  Was I petty enough to be angry that my boyfriend had been thinking of a dozen different ways to be sure his descendants (the unfriendly and sometimes snooty Bellefleurs) prospered, while I, the love of his afterlife, worried herself to tears about her finances?

    You bet, I was petty enough.

    I should be ashamed of myself.

    But later.  My mind was not through toting up grievances.


    (from Club Dead by Charlaine Harris)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Art Appreciation Tuesday

   If you're too young to be familiar with Norman Rockwell's paintings, you don't know what you're missing.

Monday, March 26, 2018

Sawhorse


    Monday Pun Day.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Far from having “small Latin and less Greek,” as Ben Jonson famously charged, Shakespeare had a great deal of Latin, for the life of a grammar-school boy was spent almost entirely in reading, writing, and reciting Latin, often in the most mind-numbingly repetitious manner.  One of the principal texts of the day taught pupils 150 different ways of saying, “Thank you for your letter” in Latin.  Through such exercises Shakespeare would have learned every possible rhetorical device and ploy – metaphor and anaphora, epistrophe and hyperbole, synecdoche, epanalepsis, and others equally arcane and taxing to memorize..

    (from Shakespeare: The World As Stage by Bill Bryson)

  9½*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Friday, March 23, 2018

Music Friday - Geezer Edition


    It pains me to call Guns N Roses a geezer band.  But really, their heyday was more than 30 years ago.  Appetite For Destruction, which featured Welcome To The Jungle, came out in 1987.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Chess on Television


    Once upon a time, back in the 80's or 90's, PBS televised a major chess match.  I don't recall now who the two players were, but they had commentators (not at the actual site of the game, of course, but back at the studio) and everything.

    Full Disclosure I've been a chess fanatic all my life.  So believe me when I say, there is NOTHING more boring than watching a chess game on TV.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Only 3 Percent Will Share This...


    Really, people.  Knock it off.

Monday, March 19, 2018

Book Excerpt for the Day


    Ah, the great leap of Faith.  The ones you get to hear about, of course, are the ones that don’t end up in long drops and messy landings.  History tends to skate over those: the aeronautical pioneers who proved that it’s not possible to fly simply by jumping off tall buildings flapping your arms like a bird.  For every Wright Brother there are ten thousand equally earnest believers who got scooped up and buried in jars, and whose memories weren’t preserved by succeeding generations, because nobody wants to admit they’re descended from an idiot.


    (from Doughnut by Tom Holt)

  8*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Sunday, March 18, 2018

E-Card Sunday


    I don't like to brag, but, yes, I'm trilingual.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Happy St. Patrick's Day


        A great nod to Celtic legends from Mythtickle from quite a few years ago.

Friday, March 16, 2018

Semi-Retired


    That's me, except it's been 45 years, not 25.  But as of today, I've switched to part-time, 20 hours per week.  Which means every weekend is 4-day or 5-day.  Kewlness.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Book Excerpt for the Day


    “Some people distill alcohol from fermented holum root, for drinking.  They say it gives the unconscious free play, like brainwave training.  Most people prefer that, it’s very easy and doesn’t cause a disease.  Is that common here?”

    “Drinking is.  I don’t know about this disease.  What’s it called?”

    “Alcoholism, I think.”

    “Oh, I see…. But what do working people do on Anarres for a bit of jollity, to escape the woes of the world together for a night?”

    Shevek looked blank.  “Well, we … I don’t know.  Perhaps our woes are inescapable?”


    (from The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin)

  7*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Quote for the Day


    It's been that kind of day.

Monday, March 12, 2018

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Root Canal


   Ignoring the typo ("denist"??  really now, nine words and you still managed to misspell one of them?!  Plus, there should be a comma after 'up', to say nothing of periods at the end of both sentences.), this was me, last Thursday, as I underwent a root canal.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Daylight Savings Time


    Spring forward.  Fall back.

Friday, March 09, 2018

Thursday, March 08, 2018

Book Excerpt for the Day


    “Damn, Kyle, couldn’t you have found a felon that smelled a little less like a garbage truck on a hot day?  Wait, that wasn’t Jackson.  It’s you!”

    “You better get used to it if you want to be a real detective and work the streets.  I’m just trying to maintain my cover.”

    “As what?  A 10-year-old jockstrap?”

    “How’d you guess?”


    (from Guardian of the Red Butterfly by D.S. Cuellar)


    6*/10.  The complete review is here.
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Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Voice Mail


    True dis.  I am fairly good about responding to text messages.  I am positively horrible about returning voice mail.

Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Writing God


    I'm a reviewer, not an author.  But if I did sit down to write a novel, this is exactly how I'd be.

Monday, March 05, 2018

Monday Pun Day


    Oy.

Sunday, March 04, 2018

Drum Solos


    Frankly, I can keep my hands on the steering wheel during In The Air Tonight.  But the drum solo in In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is an entirely different story.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

Book Excerpt for the Day


    “Nefferati?” Gabriel said.

    “She’s one of the other two True Grace Mages.  She’s a very remarkable woman, which is saying something coming from me.  I’m rather remarkable myself.  She is the oldest mage, True or otherwise.  She was born on the banks of the Euphrates around 3500 BCE and claims to be nearly seven hundred years old, but I suspect she’s lying about her age.  She’s eight hundred, if she’s a day.”

    (from The Wizard of Time by G.L. Breedon)

     7½*/10.  The full review is here.
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Friday, March 02, 2018

Quote for the Day


    Jane Austen holds a special place in my heart.  Not.

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Yearbook Deletions


    Full disclosure:  I did this a couple times in my high school and junior high yearbooks.  It's kinda embarrassing to look at it nowadays, but at the time it sure felt good.