Saturday, December 27, 2014

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

Texas teen shoots father in the face in Christmas present dispute: “The young 16-year-old was very upset because he claimed that the rest of his friends, either got a car or a pickup for Christmas. All his father provided for him was a fishing rod,” Lucio said.

Roy G. Krenkel illustrating Edgar Rice Burroughs ~ The Ace Editions

The Golden Age: Roy G. Krenkel illustrating Edgar Rice Burroughs ~ The Ace Editions

What's Your Favorite Part of the Squirrel, Miss Stephanie?

New Year's Resolution: Eat More Squirrel in 2015 

Song of the Day

Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time - YouTube:

Today's Vintage Ad


Forgotten Hits: The Saturday Surveys

Forgotten Hits: The Saturday Surveys

PaperBack



Roger Blake, Commie Sex Trap, Boudoir, 1963

Paris Hilton Update

Paris Hilton shares baby photo from her first Christmas in Instagram post   

And there's video of the present-day PH, too!

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Jeremy Lloyd, R. I. P.

.com: Jeremy Lloyd, a creator of the long-running BBC comedy series “’Allo ’Allo!” and “Are You Being Served?,” died on Monday in a hospital near his home in London. He was 84.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

10 Treasures Lost In The Mists Of Time

10 Treasures Lost In The Mists Of Time

Colonial New York City Was a Rowdy, Filthy, Smelly Seaport

Colonial New York City Was a Rowdy, Filthy, Smelly Seaport  

Link via the Presurfer.

21 Writers Who Got It Right About New York City

21 Writers Who Got It Right About New York City

10 Fascinating Facts About J.R.R. Tolkien

10 Fascinating Facts About J.R.R. Tolkien

Friday, December 26, 2014

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Woman Accused of Hitting Roommate With Walker

7 Hat Legends, Fact Checked

7 Hat Legends, Fact Checked 

Song of the Day

Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson - YouTube:

What every US state is the worst at

What every US state is the worst at

Today's Vintage Ad


Forgotten Hits: 50 Years Ago This Weekend

Forgotten Hits: 50 Years Ago This Weekend

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Lynn Keefe, How Did a Nice Girl Like You Get into this Business?, Paperback Library, 1967

The Airlines Continue to Show Love for Their Passengers

New York woman spends 3 days in jail for ‘trespassing’ after changing seats on plane

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

wptv.com: PORT ST. LUCIE — A man angry about a backup of cars at the entrance to his large gated community fought with police who were called in to intervene, according to an arrest affidavit.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

I Miss the Old Days

The Most Common Words In Billboard Popular Song Titles Per Decade

Christmas Swag

When I was a kid, I had a pistol set.  I believe it was a Roy Rogers deal, and I thought it was long gone.  We played hard with the few toys we had, and they didn't tend to last.  However, this year my brother found (who knows where) the holsters from the pistol set.  The tie-down thongs are missing, and the medallions that were in the center of each holster are gone.  The belt and pistols are gone, too, but the holsters remain.  Cracked and dry, yes, but more or less intact (or, as the eBay dealers put it, "in tack").  Now that I have them, I'm not sure what to do with them, but it's nice to know that some things from the old days yet remain.

I Want to Believe!

Study: pretend exercise builds muscle

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Florida man shoots at woman picking through his trash

Vintage Treasures: Echoes of Valor, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Vintage Treasures: Echoes of Valor, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

FFB: Catastrophe Planet -- Keith Laumer

This is a straight-up SF adventure novel.  Our Hero is Mal Irish, a guy about whom we know little or nothing and about whom we learn little or nothing more.  He's zipping across the post-apocalyptic landscape on some kind of hovercraft when he encounters a dying man in what's left of a small town in Georgia.  The man relates a wild tale of a lost race in the Antarctic and gives Mal a strange coin.  People try to kill Mal, and after that it's just one damned thing after another, with escapes and pursuits around the globe and deaths and a beautiful woman who's thousands of years old.  All this happens while the planet's crust is shifting and causing seas to rise and/or retreat, volcanoes to erupt and earthquakes to occur all the time.

None of it makes a lot of sense, though Laumer tries to tie it all up in the end.  It's part Puppet Masters and part Cthulhu and part James Bond.  And part other things, too, all in one big stew.  It's fun if you're looking for some mindless entertainment and don't mind plenty of coincidences and lots of implausible action, which I'm sometimes in the mood for.  Laumer writes with flair, and the story hardly ever slows down for more than a paragraph.  You might forget it all in a few hours, but it's entertaining for the moment.  You'll like it if that's the kind of thing you like.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Bernie, Is That You?

NY Daily News: JOPLIN, Mo. – A southwest Missouri woman has pleaded guilty to abandoning a corpse after she and a man posed for photos with the body and posted them on Facebook.

Top of the World, Ma!

The Sphinx Observatory – Science at the Top of the World 

Link via the Presurfer.

15 Fun Facts for 'Young Frankenstein's 40th Anniversary

15 Fun Facts for 'Young Frankenstein's 40th Anniversary

Throwback Thursday/Merry Christmas

My San Francisco Life: Throwback Thursday/Merry Christmas

Song of the Day

Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas - YouTube:

Top 20 Weird News Stories of 2014

Top 20 Weird News Stories of 2014

Today's Vintage Ad


First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Passenger tossed after flipping out over staff’s ‘Merry Christmas’

PaperBack



Charlotte MacLeod, Editor, Christmas Stalkings, Mysterious Press, 1992

Here's What People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive Look Like Today

Here's What People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive Look Like Today

B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

19 Chilling Photos From The Coldest Place On Earth

10 Surprising Literary Facts for Christmas

10 Surprising Literary Facts for Christmas

The Short Life—and Awesome Resurgence—of the Aluminum Christmas Tree

The Short Life—and Awesome Resurgence—of the Aluminum Christmas Tree 

Merry Christmas to All!

History of Christmas: Christmas is both a sacred religious holiday and a worldwide cultural and commercial phenomenon. For two millennia, people around the world have been observing it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. Christians celebrate Christmas Day as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a spiritual leader whose teachings form the basis of their religion. Popular customs include exchanging gifts, decorating Christmas trees, attending church, sharing meals with family and friends and, of course, waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. December 25–Christmas Day–has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1870.

Forgotten Music

10 Obscure Christmas Carols You Should Listen to Instead of Jingle Bells Yet Again  

And of course there are also these forgotten classics.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

This Is Exactly Why We Need 911

Middletown Man Calls 911 When "Babbling" Wife Keeps Him Awake

Beyonce's Dad Had A Garage Sale To Sell Her Old Stuff

This was a couple of blocks from Angela's place in Houston.  I don't think she and Tom bought anything.

Beyonce's Dad Had A Garage Sale To Sell Her Old Stuff 

And Do You Care?

What's the Difference Between Rabbits and Hares?  

Link via the Presurfer.

Gator Update (White Christmas Edition)

Albino alligator babies make white Christmas 

Arthur Rackham ~ The Night Before Christmas

The Golden Age: Arthur Rackham ~ The Night Before Christmas

Song of the Day

Bye Bye Thou Little Tiny Child - YouTube:

10 Fascinating Knives From World History

10 Fascinating Knives From World History

Today's Vintage Ad


Whoa!

Softpedia: “The fluorine in our toothpaste originates from the sun's dead ancestors,” Lund University specialist Nils Ryde explained in a statement, as cited by Space.

PaperBack



Cecil St. Laurent, Caroline Coquette, Dell 

"20/20" Explains Rap in 1981

"20/20" Explains Rap in 1981

18 killer Santas from TV and film

18 killer Santas from TV and film

Most of These Were Noted by This Blog

Where Aren't They Now? 10 Overlooked Deaths of 2014 (Part 2)

Brandon Stoddard, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: Brandon Stoddard, a television executive at ABC who shepherded the production of multipart dramas like “Roots” and “The Winds of War” that helped popularize the mini-series, died on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 77.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Joseph Sargent, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: Joseph Sargent, a director who won four Primetime Emmy Awards for television movies but whose best-known work was the 1974 thriller “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” which chillingly presented the embattled New York City of the 1970s, died on Monday at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 89.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Christmas Is Coming, the Goose Is Getting -- Chomp!

Christmas dinner... crocodile style!

The Origins of 12 Christmas Words

The Origins of 12 Christmas Words 

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Easy Death -- Daniel Boyd

I've known "Daniel Boyd" for a while under another name.  In fact, he even comments on this blog from time to time.   This is his second novel, and I'm happy to report that it's a good one.  It's from Hard Case Crime, so what else would you expect?

The setting, December, 1951, harks back to the beginning of the grand old Gold Medal days, and the subject matter is something that might have appealed to Lionel White a bit later in the decade: an armored car robbery.  As in most stories of armored car robberies, even the most carefully planned ones, things go wrong.  It's not necessarily the fault of the robbers, who turn out to be fairly likable guys.  It's the weather.  The big snowstorm becomes almost like another character in the book because Boyd does the weather so well.  

There are complications aplenty aside from the weather, and Boyd guides the reader smoothly through all of them.  He led me down the garden path once, but maybe he won't fool you.  Ms. Nixon, a park ranger who's related to a more famous Nixon, isn't fooled.

If found myself wanting things to work out for most of the characters, except for one particularly despicable one, and I suspect you will, too.  It's the Christmas season, after all.   

Knowing the author, I'd have been disappointed if there hadn't been a Hamlet allusion or two.  There's also some social commentary, some humor, and plenty of action.  Far be it from me to reveal more.  Read the book, and you may find yourself thinking of what a fine movie it would make or how it might become a Christmas perennial.  It's good stuff.

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Man Pulled Gun Over Missing McDouble Burger 

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Cold Pizza Leads to Argument, Shooting in St. Louis Area 

So Bills are Coins Now?

10 Valuable Coins That Might Be In Your Pocket

Song of the Day

Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry - YouTube:

Or Maybe Not

The Best Sci-Fi Characters of All Time: the verdict  

Link via SF Signal.

Today's Vintage Ad




Look Who's Featured

BookWorks: Featured Authors

If Famous Writers Wrote For The Internet

If Famous Writers Wrote For The Internet

PaperBack



Jeffrey Martin, French Lessons, Dell, 1971

10 Unsolved Christmastime Mysteries

10 Unsolved Christmastime Mysteries

I Miss the Old Days

A group of 1950s kids were asked what they wanted for Christmas

Magna Carta Update

Magna Carta story illuminated by discovery of medieval poem  

Link via The Presurfer.

Aaron Allston's Passing Wasn't Overlooked by Many Readers of this Blog

Where Aren't They Now? 11 Overlooked Deaths of 2014

64 clips of movies you can’t find on DVD

64 clips of movies you can’t find on DVD 

10 Animated Films That The World Inexplicably Forgot

10 Animated Films That The World Inexplicably Forgot

Overlooked Movies: The Dead

If you've never read James Joyce's "The Dead," which is one of the world's great short stories, you can still enjoy this great movie.  But if you haven't read the story, your life is the poorer.  The same is true if you've read the story and haven't seen the movie.   If you've done both already, then you know what I'm talking about.

The setting is a dinner party on the evening epiphany, Twelfth Night.  The guests arrive and talk, and we see and hear them.  We see other things in the house, and it's all warm and sad and amusing.  Virtually plotless, but still engrossing.  

The party leads up to the concluding part of the story, when Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann) and his wife, Gretta (Anjelica Huston) return to their hotel.  Gretta tells Gabriel a story she's kept from him for all their married lives.  It's about a boy named Michael Furey, who might have died for his love of her.  The conclusion of the movie is pretty much straight of of the story as we hear Gabriel's thoughts (the final paragraph of the story).  It's as moving and effective as anything you'll see (or hear).

I've thought about this movie a good bit over the last few weeks, and I hope that Judy knew she'd married her Michael Furey.  I think she did. 

The Dead (Trailer Commentary)

Dan Ireland on THE DEAD (Trailer Commentary) - YouTube:

Monday, December 22, 2014

Billie Whitelaw, R. I. P.

The Guardian: “I could have easily have become a nun, or a prostitute, or both,” said Billie Whitelaw, who has died aged 82. Instead, she claimed that acting had allowed her to use both these sides of herself in a career that included theatre, films, television – and a special place in the affection and inspiration of Samuel Beckett.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

KY: Man rejected on Facebok sets home on fire  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Script Notes on The Birth of Jesus

Script Notes on The Birth of Jesus

Joe Cocker, R. I. P.

BBC News: Singer Joe Cocker, best known for his cover of the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends," has died aged 70. 

The singer song-writer from Sheffield had a career lasting more than 40 years with hits including "You Are So Beautiful" and "Up Where We Belong."

Now Available: How to Get Published: 50 Successful Query Letters

Now Available: How to Get Published: 50 Successful Query Letters - Brett Weiss

The Hunter, The Hoaxer, And The Battle Over Bigfoot

The Hunter, The Hoaxer, And The Battle Over Bigfoot: Jeffrey Meldrum is a respected anthropologist risking his reputation to prove Sasquatch is real; Rick Dyer is a self-described “entertainer” unapologetically capitalizing off it. Their rivalry represents two sides of the fractious but booming subculture.

Song of the Day

DECK US ALL WITH BOSTON CHARLIE - YouTube:

25 Years of Must-Have Toys

25 Years of Must-Have Toys  

Link via The Presurfer.

Today's Vintage Ad


Or Maybe You Did

15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About 'Payback' 

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Boing Boing: Residents of Street, England, have been urged not to panic after a man, holding a rubber chicken, threatened to eat a local woman. The Central Somerset Gazette reports that the man is still at large.

PaperBack



Russell Gage, No Price Too High (Immoral Lady), Midwood, 1967

30 Books That Changed History

Books That Changed History

10 of the United States' Most Intriguing Archaeological Mysteries

American Ancients: 10 of the United States' Most Intriguing Archaeological Mysteries  

Link via Neatorama.

I Want to Believe!

Working toward a warp drive: In his garage lab, Omahan aims to bend fabric of space 

New Poem at the Five-Two

The Five-Two: Roger Netzer: YOU DIDN'T MEAN TO KILL ANYONE

Dick Cavett: By the Book

Dick Cavett: By the Book 

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Show Me Your Badge, Ranger

Western Fictioneers: Show Me Your Badge, Ranger: Texas Ranger badges are a hot commodity in the collectibles market, but the caveat “buyer beware” applies in a big way.

Song of the Day

The Statler Brothers - Turn Your Radio On - YouTube:

Archaeology Upate

Million-Mummy Cemetery Unearthed in Egypt

Today's Vintage Ad


That "Fact" That Coke Created Santa's Costume Is A Big Fat Lie

That "Fact" That Coke Created Santa's Costume Is A Big Fat Lie

PaperBack



John Wyndham (John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris), Revolt of the Triffids (The Day of the Triffids), Popular Library, 1952

Walt Kelly ~ "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie"

The Golden Age: Walt Kelly ~ "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie"

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Cleveland men's argument over sexuality ends in sword attack

The Truth about "Jingle Bells"

CBC News: Here’s the truth about Jingle Bells. It’s not a Christmas song—it’s a Thanksgiving song. It’s not a jolly family song—it’s a drinking song. It’s at the centre of a nasty dispute, and it was written by a 'jerk'.

Benjamin Harrison and the White House's First Christmas Tree

Benjamin Harrison and the White House's First Christmas Tree

6 Real Places on Earth Straight Out of a Fantasy Novel

6 Real Places on Earth Straight Out of a Fantasy Novel