Now it's the World Baseball Classic Melee:
News from The Associated Press: A fierce brawl that saw Alfredo Aceves and several players throw nasty punches erupted Saturday in the ninth inning of Canada's 10-3 romp over Mexico in the World Baseball Classic in a melee that also involved fans.
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Stonehenge Update
Stonehenge builders travelled from far, say researchers: The latest findings, which came after a decade of research, suggested it was the act of building the monument rather than its purpose that was key.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .
burlingtonfreepress.com: John Jones of Proctor pleaded innocent to reckless endangerment. The 57-year-old Jones is accused of swinging his loaded shotgun at Jake Duprey in West Rutland in December.
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
Home Invasion: Patti Abbott: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: HOME INVASION is a novel in stories that examines a dysfunctional family across fifty years. The family’s multi generational saga reflects the foibles and vices of the late 20th and early 21st century America: religion, gambling, drink, war, the desire to escape ones past, and especially the commission of crimes. The sins vary in gravity, but each is the result of bad decisions, misplaced values, and deplorable parenting. Each story is set in a slightly different year, with a somewhat different cast of characters, moving chronologically yet circularly in theme.
7 Weird and Wonderful Facts About the Wizard of Oz Books
The Wizard of Oz Books: 7 Weird and Wonderful Facts About the Wizard of Oz Books
Link via Neatorama.
Link via Neatorama.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
Mail Online: Romulus the Donkey is set to beat the Guinness World Record as the World's Tallest Donkey.
Measured by a local vet in Texas, Romulus is an incredible 68 inches tall, 2 inches taller than previous holder Oklahoma Sam.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
The 50 Best Food Memoirs
AbeBooks: The 50 Best Food Memoirs: Food memoirs can be divided into three main categories – finding and/or growing food, making food and eating food – but these often merge. Books about the histories of particular foods can be very interesting but we’re dealing here with memoirs – books about real-life experiences. The best food memoirs go way beyond the food and into someone’s reality – food memoirs can be deeply revealing about families and working environments.
Friday, March 08, 2013
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Excellent book, highly recommended.
EARTHQUAKE WEATHER: Terrill Lee Lankford, Michael Connelly: Amazon.com: Books: A veteran filmmaker and novelist now creates a riveting noir set in the power-mad jungle of Hollywood. In Earthquake Weather a natural disaster shakes a city and an industry to their cores, revealing new layers of deceit, desire, and deadly aggression.
Hollywood. The land of dreams and schemes. Mark Hayes has a dream. To make movies. But that’s easier wished for than done. Years of frustrating career moves have yielded little progress and Mark now finds himself in a dead end job as a “creative executive” for the loathsome producer, Dexter Morton at Prescient Pictures, the hottest new production company in town. A job like that could lead to big things—but Dexter Morton has no interest in promoting Mark’s ambitions. Then a major earthquake rocks Los Angeles and all deals are off. And when Mark finds a body floating in Dexter’s pool he goes from D-Boy to murder suspect before he can say “three picture deal”.
Kenny Ball, R. I. P.
BBC News: Jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball has died at the age of 82 after suffering from pneumonia, his manager has confirmed.
He was best known as the lead trumpet player in the band Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen in the late 1950s and 1960s and for his regular TV appearances with comic duo Morecambe and Wise.
Claude King. R. I. P.
Country singer Claude King dies | News - Home: Country music singer Claude King died early this morning, according to family members. King turned 90 years old last month. He was born in Keithville and bought his first guitar when he was 12. King, was a frequent guest on the Louisiana Hayride. He often performed in the same shows as Elvis, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Jim Reeves and George Jones. King first hit the country top 10 with his song "Big River, Big Man." He followed with "The Comancheros", which became a hit in the 1960's. But his 1962 song, "Wolverton Mountain", would become his signature song. It sold over a million copies. King also appeared in a number of films. King leaves behind 3 sons and a number of grandchildren.
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
SWILL: Victor Gischler: Amazon.com: Books: A sample of short stories from author Victor Gischler. Includes these hardboiled tales:
"Xs for Eyes"
"Final Tally"
"Kill Posse"
"Misty's World"
"The Humpers"
WARNING: Sex and violence and dirty words!
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .
WTAE Home: Braddock officers suspended after fight in police station
Police say Taser used during scuffle in Braddock
Feeling Safer Now?
NYPOST.com: An undercover TSA inspector with an improvised explosive device stuffed in his pants got past two security screenings at Newark Airport — including a pat-down — and was cleared to get on board a commercial flight, sources told The Post yesterday.
Here's the Plot for Your Next Big Alligator Thriller
Man sought after alligator found eating another's body: When investigators pulled the body from the water, they discovered 18 feet of heavy duty, steel chain wrapped around the victim’s legs. They also saw he had been shot several times - executed.
Forgotten Books: The Gathering Place -- Jon L. Breen
Here's the supernatural part, and it's essential to the plot. Rachel discovers that she can reproduce the signatures of any number of writers in their books. She does it so perfectly that an expert believes they're authentic. Fitzgerald? Sure. Erle Stanley Gardner? Yes. And others.
There are two murders. One of them is of a ghostwriter, and the other is of a book collector. Both are connected to the bookshop, and one of them occurs there.
Setting aside the murders and the solution, however, my favorite parts of the book are about the shop and the collectors and the people who want to sell their National Geographics. And the fact that you could get a nice copy of the first edition of The Great Gatsby in 1984 for a hundred bucks. Not anymore.
When The Gathering Place was published, it described a world that I was familiar with and never dreamed would disappear. It did, but I'm glad that Breen captured it so well in his novel.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .
News - Home: A homeless woman used an aluminum baseball bat to behead a statue inside a Lake County church because, according to police, she was trying to fight the devil.
Instant Karma
Breaking News, Local News, Local Weather, Local Sports: Polk County authorities say it appears a burglar died when a rifle he'd just stolen was jostled and fired during a ride down a bumpy farm road.
Hat tip to Michael Bracken.
Hat tip to Michael Bracken.
Texas Awards $60K In Contest To Kill Feral Hogs
CBS Dallas / Fort Worth: More than 7,150 feral hogs were killed as part of a competition to curb their numbers in Texas and limit the hundreds of millions of dollars in damage caused to crops and ranchland every year, state agriculture officials said Wednesday. The Texas Department of Agriculture awarded Sutton County in West Texas the $20,000 first-place prize in the Hog Out Challenge that ran from October through December.
Hat tip to Seepy Benton.
Stompin' Tom Connors, R. I. P.
Canadian country-folk singer Stompin' Tom Connors dies: Canadian country-folk singer Stompin' Tom Connors, whose toe-tapping musical spirit and fierce patriotism established him as one of Canada's biggest cultural icons, has died, his promoter said Wednesday night. He was 77.
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Jewel Akens, R. I. P.
latimes.com: Jewel Akens, 79, the R&B crooner whose song "The Birds and the Bees" vaulted him into short-lived fame in the mid-1960s, died Friday of complications from back surgery at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, said his wife, Eddie Mae.
Alvin Lee, R. I. P.
MusicRadar: Alvin Lee, the guitarist and singer of Ten Years After, has died.
A statement posted on his official website read: "With great sadness we have to announce that Alvin unexpectedly passed away early this morning after unforseen complications following a routine surgical procedure.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Stomp Boogie (The Roy Carpenter Mysteries): Troy D. Smith: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: A Roy Carpenter short story.
Roy Carpenter is a blues musician in 1957 Nashville, and a private detective on the side. Most of his cases are pretty mundane -jealous spouses and insurance scams. But then a wealthy real estate magnate hires Roy to find his missing maid -a stunningly beautiful woman with a terrible secret. Or two. His pursuit of the truth will lead Roy into the seamy underside of Nashville's juke joints and blues clubs, and the even seamier world of the wealthy elite...
63 is Elderly?
News: Video games make the elderly happier, research suggests
The fact that this article is published by Computer and Video Games is not to say that it's conclusions aren't 100% valid.
Hat tip to Walter Satterthwait.
The fact that this article is published by Computer and Video Games is not to say that it's conclusions aren't 100% valid.
Hat tip to Walter Satterthwait.
Palaeontology Update
(Wired UK): The remains of an extinct species of giant camel have been discovered on Ellesmere Island in the Arctic region of Canada.
The creature was identified thanks to analysis of 30 fossilised fragments of leg bone, each around 3.5 million years old, placing them firmly in the mid-Pliocene. Additional evidence from the surrounding area allowed the research team to conclude that this was likely a High Arctic camel -- a previously unknown species which lived in the forests of the Arctic during a global warm period.
The creature was identified thanks to analysis of 30 fossilised fragments of leg bone, each around 3.5 million years old, placing them firmly in the mid-Pliocene. Additional evidence from the surrounding area allowed the research team to conclude that this was likely a High Arctic camel -- a previously unknown species which lived in the forests of the Arctic during a global warm period.
Archaeology Update
Shipwreck may contain near-mythical Viking navigation aid: An oblong crystal found in the wreck of a 16th-century English warship is a sunstone, a near-mythical navigational aid said to have been used by Viking mariners, researchers said on Wednesday.
The stone is made of Iceland spar, a transparent, naturally-occurring calcite crystal that polarises light and can get a bearing on the Sun, they said.
The stone is made of Iceland spar, a transparent, naturally-occurring calcite crystal that polarises light and can get a bearing on the Sun, they said.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
7 Sentences that Sound Crazy but are Still Grammatical
7 Sentences that Sound Crazy but are Still Grammatical: Martha Brockenbrough, founder of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, started National Grammar Day in 2008. Since then it has been held every year on March 4th, a date that also happens to be a complete sentence (March forth!). It is celebrated in various ways: There is a haiku contest, an anagram unscrambling contest, and even an official song.
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Can Seepy Benton Win a Million Bucks?
This Is the Hardest Math Problem in the World: Don’t worry—I’m not going to ask you to solve it. You can win a million dollars if you do, but right now it baffles the world’s top mathematicians. It may well be the trickiest, most annoying, most elusive mathematical problem ever. It’s the P/NP problem, and ironically it asks: do hard math problems actually exist?
Overlooked Movies: The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men
And with good reason. It has a lot going for it. Richard Todd might not be Flynn, but he's really good and seems to be having a jolly good time as Robin. In fact, all the actors seem to be enjoying themselves, even the evil Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. All the expected scenes -- the quarterstaff battle between Robin and Little John, the tussle with Friar Tuck, the archery contest -- are here and done very well. The color is beautiful, and so is Sherwood Forest. The sheriff's end in this one is different from any other, and it's just great. I even like Alan-a-Dale strolling around and singing about what's happening or going to happen. All the kids in the neighborhood were playing Robin Hood for months after this movie came out. If you're looking for a good time, you can't miss with The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men.
Monday, March 04, 2013
A short history of Gold Medal Books
Ed Gorman's blog: A short history of Gold Medal Books
After reading the article on Ed's blog, I couldn't resist a little mention here of my own article on my favorite publisher of paperback originals. You can find it at Al Guthrie's Noir Originals.
After reading the article on Ed's blog, I couldn't resist a little mention here of my own article on my favorite publisher of paperback originals. You can find it at Al Guthrie's Noir Originals.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
The Best of Frontier Tales: Pamela Foster, John Putnam, Terry Alexander, J.B. Hogan, Dusty Richards, Nancy Hartney, Ellen Gray Massey, Larry Payne, Kathleen Sprayberry, Duke Pennell: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: In tales from heart-warming to bone-chilling, authors from across the country take us back to the lives and times of the western frontier, where the new culture met the old and battles were fought, love born, and dreams achieved - or lost. This collection of the Tales voted Best by readers each month at www.FrontierTales.com, plus an Editor's Choice, make 13 wonderful stories of the Old West. Meet civil war soldiers, sheriffs, grifters and gunslingers, natives and ne'er-do-wells, and the women and men who pioneered this vast new land. Multiple Spur Award-winner Dusty Richards leads the pack of writers who love the West so much they must bring it alive for others. (Contains some graphic violence - hey, they're Westerns.) Sit a spell and take in some stories that illustrate how this country became the force that it is, and the guts and determination of all who left the known and risked everything they had for the adventure and opportunity to explore a new territory and way of life.Link via My Little Corner.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Sick (A Project Eden Thriller): Brett Battles, Blake Crouch: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: Daniel Ash wakes after midnight to the cry of his daughter. Just a bad dream, he thinks. She’s had them before. Yet he can’t help but worry when she cries out again as he pads down the hallway. Stepping through her doorway, he expects to find her sitting up in bed, frightened by a nightmare. But the nightmare is his. It’s real. And it's just beginning...
Something is burning Ash's daughter alive. Something horrible that is spreading beyond the walls of their home, and taking no prisoners.
Thirty seconds later, Ash will discover his daughter isn’t the only one in his family infected, and as his world spins, coming apart at the seams, a team of armed men in biohazard suits bursts into his house.
But these aren’t the good guys. They haven’t come to save Ash’s family. They’ve come to separate them, to finish what they started.
The problem is Ash refuses to disappear. He wants only one thing: to find those responsible. Because humanity is on the brink of execution.
And man is pulling the trigger.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Becoming Quinn (A Jonathan Quinn Novel): Brett Battles: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: From award winning author Brett Battles comes the new Jonathan Quinn thriller BECOMING QUINN.
Most careers begin with an interview and a handshake. Others require a little ... something more.
Meet Jake Oliver. The day will come when he's one of the best cleaners in the business, a man skilled at making bodies disappear.
At the moment, however, he's a twenty-two year old rookie cop, unaware his life is about to change.
In a burning barn a body is found--and the fire isn't the cause of death. The detectives working the case have a pretty good idea about what went down.
But Officer Oliver thinks it's something else entirely, and pursues a truth others would prefer remain hidden--others who will go to extreme lengths to keep him quiet.
Every identity has an origin. This is Quinn's.
Most careers begin with an interview and a handshake. Others require a little ... something more. Meet Jake Oliver. The day will come when he's one of the best cleaners in the business, a man skilled at making bodies disappear.
At the moment, however, he's a twenty-two year old rookie cop, unaware his life is about to change.
In a burning barn a body is found--and the fire isn't the cause of death. The detectives working the case have a pretty good idea about what went down.
But Officer Oliver thinks it's something else entirely, and pursues a truth others would prefer remain hidden--others who will go to extreme lengths to keep him quiet.
Every identity has an origin. This is Quinn's.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
NY Daily News: Ron White, a Texas man with an extraordinary talent, has memorized the names of more than 2,200 American service members killed in Afghanistan since the conflict began more than 11 years ago.
And to pay quiet homage to them, he's embarking on a U.S. tour to write their names on a 50-foot-long dry-erase-board during each stop.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
And to pay quiet homage to them, he's embarking on a U.S. tour to write their names on a 50-foot-long dry-erase-board during each stop.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Bobby Rogers, R. I. P.
Miracles' founding member Bobby Rogers dies at 73: As a vocalist, songwriter and choreographer, the Miracles’ Bobby Rogers embodied the eclectic Motown spirit from the company’s earliest days.
Rogers died at about 6:30 a.m. today at his longtime Southfield home after a lengthy illness, succumbing to complications from diabetes. He was 73.
Rogers died at about 6:30 a.m. today at his longtime Southfield home after a lengthy illness, succumbing to complications from diabetes. He was 73.
Weaponized Bacon WBAGNFARB
Weaponized Bacon Unofficial Theme at Rodeo's 2013 Gold Buckle Foodie Awards : Bacon-flavored (and -- disturbingly -- colored) cotton candy. Bacon-topped cinnamon rolls. Chocolate-covered bacon. Bacon breakfast burritos. Bacon-topped baked potatoes. A bacon cheeseburger with two patties, four strips of bacon and four glazed donuts for buns. The Rodeo has clearly figured out a way to weaponize bacon in the form of food.
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD (The Jake Lassiter Series): Paul Levine: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: “Move over Scott Turow. ‘To Speak for the Dead’ is courtroom drama at its very best.” – Larry King, USA Today "Just the remedy for those who can't get enough Spenser and miss Travis McGee terribly." – St. Petersburg Times
"Jake Lassiter is attractive, funny, savvy, and brave." – Chicago Tribune
"Irreverent...genuinely clever...great fun." – The New York Times Book Review
“Genuinely chilling.” – Washington Post Book World
“Wildly entertaining.” – St. Louis Post Dispatch
“Take one part John Grisham, two parts Carl Hiaasen, throw in a dash of John D. MacDonald, and voila! You’ve got Jake Lassiter.” – Tulsa Sun
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