Ommmm. Mmmmm.

    This is  why I've never been big on meditation.

Dorian Gray

    We don't normally post any literary spoilers here.  But in this case, we'll make an exception.

Time Machine-Pooling

    This is why I never carpool when traveling in my Time Machine.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it.  I’ve become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magnificent Brueghel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof.  It’s not “Look what Brueghel did, painted this masterpiece” but “Look what I did, went to Rotterdam and stood in front of a Brueghel painting!”

    (from Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, by David Sedaris)

     7½*/10.  The full review is here.

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Where's Waldo the Convict

    It took me a surprisingly long time to spot him.

The Evils of Alcohol

    My wife has absolutely no sense of humor.

Anatomy of a Bookworm

    Seems pretty spot-on to me.

Doggy Diets

    Our dog Bella has been put on a diet, and asked that I post this. No, that's not her.  Although the body build is about right, she's colored differently.   And she prefers to give evil eyes instead of snarling.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “It’s said he betrayed a god.”

    Finally the man faced him.  His face was scarred, and something that might have been a burn marred his jaw and left cheek.  For all that, he looked young for a commander.  “Heed the lesson there, son.”

    “What lesson?”

    “Every decision you make can change the world.  The best life is the one the gods don’t notice.  You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”

    “I want to be a soldier.  A hero.”

    “You’ll grow out of it.”

    (from Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson)

    9½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Listen To The Rain

        Laugh if you will, but I once bought an LP that consisted of nothing but random jungle sounds, none of which were in the least bit exciting.  Someone apparently just set up a tape recorder and let it go for 40 minutes or so, figuring there were idiots out there who'd buy anything.  Like me.

    And I won't even mention the 3-LP boxed set I once got, with nothing but all sorts of trains blowing their whistles at railroad crossings.

Pictures Without Text Saturday

    Just cuz I've been listening to punk music this afternoon.

Friday Picture Puzzle

    Answer in the comments, but you really should get this one yourself.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    He was small, but fast.  Herr Ninja was in front of Blake before he could react.  All Blake could do was raise his arm above his head, to shield himself, but he knew it would be useless.  Katana are made for lopping off limbs the way anapestic tetrameter was made for Seussian poetry, except Japanese swords don’t scan as well and poetry tends to draw less blood.

    (from The Fridgularity by Mark A. Rayner)

  7½*/10. 

    The complete review is here.

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The Ants Are My Friend

   "A Spring Clean of the May Queen"?!?!  I'm sure that's not correct.  It doesn't make any sense.  Of course, the way I've always sang it, "a sprinkling of the May Queen", doesn't make any sense either.

    As for this blog entry's title, the second line of the song is "They're Blowing in the Wind".

Dali Tuesday

    We are committed to all things Dali.

Monday Illusion

    Back from a much-needed and much-enjoyed sojourn in the Pacific Northwest.  Missed three days of monsoonal havoc down here in Arizona, and left Seattle just as a heat wave was approaching.  Timing is everything.

    Of course, a "heat wave" in Seattle means high temperatures above 90°F, while here in Phoenix, a 90°F high means it's time to get out a light jacket in the evening.  Location is everything.

    Alas, tomorrow I must return to work.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    The simple truth is that one person’s Druid is another person’s fantasy.  The Druids have been conjured in a wide variety of perceptions, as to who they were, what they believed and what they taught, since the sixteenth century.  The basic problem is that no Druid, nor sympathetic contemporary observer, ever committed to writing the necessary unequivocal information for our latter-day understanding.  We have to search diligently among many sources to come up with our answers and, as Levi-Strauss implies, the result of the search depends on what questions we ask.

    (from A Brief History of the Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis)

  7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Druids

    Question: What mental image forms in your mind when you hear the word "Druid"?

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “I need a good trustworthy man in Charles Town.  Someone to make sure the supplies keep flowing, and to make certain such dirtiness as has been done to me in the past is not repeated.  A … uh … private investigator, you might say.  Does that sound at all of interest to you?”

    It took a little while longer for Matthew to find his voice.  “I do appreciate your offer, sir.  I do.  But, to be perfectly honest, you and I would eventually come to blows and our fight might knock the earth off its tilt.  Therefore I must decline, as I would hate to be responsible for the death of mankind.”

    (from Speaks The Nightbird, Evil Unveiled by Robert McCammon)

     9*/10.  The full review is here.

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Happy 4th of July

    No one is free, until everyone is free.

RIP Jim Morrison

    RIP, Jim Morrison.  d. 07/03/71.  When people ask me, "The Beatles or The Stones?", my response is always: "The Doors!"

About Those Tax Cuts

    That's pretty much the way they work.

Sunday Pun Day

    Clever.

Stuff Happens

    Well, I had to go look this up on Amazon to see if it was real.  I didn't find a 3-volume set, but I was amazed at just how many books with this title that Amazon has to offer.

Dial Up

    Once upon a time, if you connected to AOL in under 30 minutes, you considered it to be your lucky night.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Early that spring, on a sunny afternoon, Johnson wrecked his roommate’s yacht, running it aground on Long Island Sound.  The boat sank within minutes; Johnson was rescued by a passing trawler; asked what happened, he admitted to the incredulous fishermen that he did not know how to sail because it would be “so utterly tedious to learn.  And anyway, it looks simple enough.”  Confronted by his roommate, Johnson admitted he had not asked permission to use the yacht because “it was such bother to find you.”

    (from Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Socializing

    In truth, this is me after about 5 minutes at any social function I'm forced to attend.  

Exposure

    Ain't it the truth?!

On this day in History

    170 years ago today, on June 25, 1848, the first instance of Photojournalism occurred, during a short-lived revolution in France called the June Days Uprising.  (Wiki it).

    The first photograph, taken on June 25, shows the barricades thrown up by the workers. The "Before" pic.

The second photograph, taken a day later, is the "After" pic, after the French army swept in obliterated the workers' movement.

   Sadly, it's of poorer quality.  Sadly, there were 10,000 casualties in quelling the uprising.  Happily, Photojournalism was born and is still with us today.

We didn't, we did, we will

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Senators pounded their podia, demanding answers.  The president declared that he, too, wanted answers.  The CIA said that although it would have no official comment, it, too, perhaps even more than the president and the senators, wanted answers.  The secretary of state said that there might in fact be no answers, but if there were, he certainly would be interested in hearing them.  The secretary general of the United Nations said that he was reasonably certain answers existed, but first the right questions must be asked, and then they would have to be translated, and this would take time.

    (from Florence of Arabia by Christopher Buckley)

    7½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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TGIAFIJ

    The reality of today was something short of this strip.  I had to go in to work for three hours, and today's high was 112°F. 

New Books

    Sigh.  This is me.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    She held up the pistol for us to admire.  “Keltec P-3AT, .380 caliber.  It’s a nice semiautomatic.  Six rounds is plenty.  And it’s bigger than a .32 and smaller than a .38.  It’s lightweight, and easy to handle for a woman’s smaller hands.  “Try it,” she said, shoving the grip into my hand.

    I hefted the small gun.  “Is it empty?”

    “Don’t be silly, of course it’s not empty.”

    (from A Dead Red Oleander by R.P. Dahlke)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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My first book!

    Hey everybody, I've finished writing my first book!!  In fact, I've even completed the sequel.  I'm very proud of the book covers.  I designed them myself!

Border Patrol

    This is what we've become.

Meetings

    I had one of these last week, except that it was called and chaired by a co-worker, not my boss.  It was a teleconference, actually.  My boss, also required to be there, spent the whole time looking at his cell phone.  I hypnotized myself by staring at the whiteboard.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    ”You can’t play what if, not at this level,” Rafael said.  “We have to concentrate on the immediate threat.”

    “There wouldn’t be an immediate threat if we’d used the quantumbusters.”

    “We don’t even know that,” Rafael said.  Not for certain.

    “It wasn’t the technology which let us down; we suffered a failure of will.  We’re too civilized to push the genocide button.”

    “I’m glad,” Justine said.  “That reluctance to exterminate any creature that might be a difficult problem defines us as a species.  We don’t operate at their level.  That’s got to be worth something.”

    “Not when you’re dead, it isn’t.”

    (from Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton)

    9½ Stars.  The complete review is here.

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The long hot Phoenix summer

    It was 92°F for a high here in Phoenix today.  Which is totally unheard-of for the middle of June here.

    Thank the Creator the long hot 2018 Arizona summer is at long last over. 

Mr. Jynx

    We had to put Mr. Jynx to sleep last night.  We're the kind of folks that don't desert our dogs when they get old or ill.  We're there for them until the final heartbeat.

    But that makes for some brutal moments in life, and last night was one of them.  A more detailed good-bye to Mr. Jynx will be posted in a couple days.