And this place doesn't seem so nice to me.
Northwest Florida Daily News: NICEVILLE - Niceville Police officers were called to a residence after a man allegedly decided he wanted to sing and dance outside.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Thursday, October 09, 2014
History of Civil War board game
History of Civil War board game: The Pro-Union Civil War Board Game That Was the Chutes and Ladders of 1862
Tar-Covered Men WBAGNFARB
Police arrest tar-covered man atop Daytona Beach store: When police arrived, they saw Holoman on the roof, covered in tar. He first said he was visiting family and then changed his story, saying he was an air conditioning technician trying to fix the units because he could hear them making noise from the ground, the report states.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Rock Hall of Fame Nominees
Green Day and Nine Inch Nails Among Rock Hall of Fame Nominees: They are among 15 nominees for the Hall of Fame’s class of 2015, along with Lou Reed, Kraftwerk, the Smiths, Sting, War, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Marvelettes and the Spinners. The Smiths, the pioneering British band led by the singer Morrissey, has been nominated for the first time, as have the blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in 1990, and Bill Withers, the singer of 1970s soul hits like “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
The Return of Perry Mason?
E! Online: Yes, we have a Sherlock 3 in development. We want it to be the best of the series, so that's a pretty tall order," R[obert] D[owney] J[unior] answered, "Also, Perry Mason is a property I'm looking forward to developing further, going back to the 1931 book series…similarly to what we did with the first 2 Sherlocks, mining the original material for things that are 'new.'"
I Want to Believe!
Researchers: Is Bigfoot a visitor from space?
And in fact I wrote the story years ago. It's in this book.
And in fact I wrote the story years ago. It's in this book.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
No Comment Department
Even an Ozarks coroner gets surplus military guns: Doug Wortham used a Defense Department giveaway program for law enforcement to stock his office with an assault rifle, a handgun and a Humvee — even though the people in his custody are in no condition to put up a fight.
They're dead.
They're dead.
Captain's Memories -- Henry Melton
I'm in awe of the amount of planning that's gone into Henry Melton's future history series that he calls The Project Saga. He's been writing stories about it since 1977 when one appeared in Analog and another appeared in Stellar 3. The novels have been appearing for several years now from Wire Rim Press, and now we get Captain's Memories, which contains the stories mentioned above along with a lot of others.But it's not just the stories. Melton has created a framework into which they fit and connecting tissue to make them part of a history of some of the early days of the Project.
Captain Pearce wants back into the Star Fleet after her early retirement, and teaching is the only route open to her. She's going to teach students who are candidates for the Academy, and she's going to try to guide them into informed decisions about whether to go into the Fleet or find something else to do with their lives. She also has an agenda of her own.
Captain Pearce's teaching comes through the telling of stories, like "The Christmas Count," which gives a good picture of a domed world and which is a nice Christmas story to boot. And like "We Hold These Rights," which is about a possible rebellion and war and which is as relevant now as the time it was published. And like "Three Coffins," a very unusual first-contact story. And like "Working Alone," a good problem-solving story of the kind that I've always liked a lot. There are a lot of others, and they're mostly hard science fiction. The beamships and the methods of moving whole planets are all carefully worked out. That doesn't mean the people don't count. The characters in every story and in the connecting material are all as real as can be. If you like SF and if you haven't been reading Melton's books, this would be an excellent place to start. Good stories and good storytelling make a potent combo.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
So It's Come to This
Swings too dangerous for Washington schools: Swing sets are being removed from the playgrounds at Richland elementary schools because they're too dangerous.
15 Celebs Who Are Completely Washed Up
15 Celebs Who Are Completely Washed Up
Annoying slideshow and wrong, wrong, wrong!
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Annoying slideshow and wrong, wrong, wrong!
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Uh-Oh
Sony in Talks to Buy High-Priced Robin Hood Project: The tone of the story has been described as Mission: Impossible and the recent Fast & Furious movies.
History's greatest female crime writers
History's greatest female crime writers
Annoying slideshow. And Gillian Flynn is already one of history's greatest female crime writers.
Annoying slideshow. And Gillian Flynn is already one of history's greatest female crime writers.
Marian Seldes, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Marian Seldes, a regal personality in New York theater for more than half a century in plays ranging from whodunits to the work of Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett and, especially, Edward Albee, died Tuesday at her home in New York. She was 88.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Overlooked Movies: What's Up, Tiger Lily?
I saw this movie long ago and thought it was pretty amusing. Woody Allen took a Japanese spy movie, recut it, and dubbed it with U. S. actors doing mostly one-liners that had nothing to do with the original plot. So, for example, whatever the MacGuffin was in the original movie has become the recipe for the world's best egg salad. The trailer and the poster give the impression that Allen is in the movie. He is, but only in the prologue at the beginning, when he tells about making the movie.Little did I know that the movie I saw wasn't the one that Allen intended for me to see. It had been altered with dialogue being added, along with additional scenes from another movie. And the Lovin' Spoonful. Yes, the Lovin' Spoonful sings a couple of numbers during the course of the movie for reasons that are obscure other than that somebody wanted them in there.
Or that's one version of the story, at least. There are others. I don't think anybody really knows for sure how many versions of the movie there are or which ones exist on current DVDs. It's something worth a look, though, if you want a movie unlike just about any other. The one-liners are hit and miss, but they hit more often than they miss. Or that was my long-ago impression. Now they might all fall flat.
Monday, October 06, 2014
Geoffrey Holder, R. I. P.
BBC News: Geoffrey Holder, the Tony-winning actor, dancer and choreographer known to millions as Baron Samedi in Bond movie Live and Let Die, has died at 84.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Big Lake - Kindle edition by Nick Russell. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.: When an armored car hijacking leaves two men dead, Arizona Sheriff Jim Weber takes the crime personally, because one of the dead men is his brother-in-law. His hunt for the killers leads him into a world of sordid sex, deceit, and violence, with a suspect list that includes jilted women, a family of anti-government survivalists, and the beautiful wife of the richest man in town. With a plot that has more twists and turns than an Arizona mountain road, a cast of characters you won’t soon forget, and a shocking ending that shakes the town of Big Lake to its very foundation, this first book in the Big Lake series will keep you turning pages to the very end!
Trick or Deadly Treat -- Livia Washburn
I always enjoy Livia Washburn's mysteries about Phyllis Newsome and her boarders. Like the earlier books, this one's got a great small-town Texas setting, characters you feel like are old friends, and a solid mystery plot, but I liked this one even more than usual because one of the boarders, Sam Fletcher, adopts a dog. And it's not just any dog. It's a dalmatian. [DIGRESSION ALERT] When I was young, my father brought home a dog that was mostly, but not quite all, dalmatian. He called it Drift, but my younger brother couldn't pronounce that. He said "Drip." So that became the dog's name. Now I know that a lot of you have had dogs that you think were pretty good dogs, and you are, of course entitled to your opinion, but Drip was the best dog ever, the smartest and most loyal and just the downright most lovable. After Drip crossed the rainbow bridge, my parents had several other dogs -- dalmatians. My brother, who has more dogs than I can keep up with, has a dalmatian among them even now. Whenever a book or a movie or a story has a dalmatian in it, I'm almost guaranteed to like it. [END OF DIGRESSION ALERT]
The dog, Buck, proves to be the connection to the murder in the novel because its vet is accused of killing his wife (the vet's wife, not Buck's wife). Sam can't believe the vet would kill anyone, but Phyllis has promised not to get involved in any more murder cases. That leaves it up to Sam to do the investigating. He knows he's not as good as Phyllis, but he's willing to go it alone if he has to. Later in the book, however, he and Phyllis are hired by the vet's lawyer as consultants. For the first time in the series, they're legit. I have a feeling this will come into play in later books.
Naturally there's cooking along the way, and I'm hungry for white chili casserole right now. Not to mention coconut cream pie cookies. Recipes are included.
There's another development at the end of the novel that's related to cooking and that also promises to figure in upcoming books in the series. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. If you haven't read any of the other books, you can jump right in with this one, but you'll get even more fun from it if you start at the beginning of the series with A Peach of a Murder. The whole series is highly recommended.
Sunday, October 05, 2014
Paul Revere, R.I.P.
The American Spectator: Paul Revere, founder of Paul Revere & The Raiders, passed away yesterday at the age of 76. His death was announced on the band's official website. He was 76.
Saturday, October 04, 2014
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
A DEAD RED HEART (The Dead Red Mystery series Book 2) - Kindle edition by RP Dahlke. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.: What would you do if the love of your life lost their chance at a heart transplant because the donor organ went to a convicted felon? Grieve and let go--or wait until the convict is released and then hunt him down and make him pay?
Lalla Bains certainly doesn't need any more distractions during the simmering summers in the San Joaquin Valley of California; her tight-wad, widowed father is now a born-again lady's man, a disreputable crop-dusting competitor threatens her business, and last but not least, she worries whether the sultry redhead in the local police department is taking more than a professional interest in her honey, Sheriff Caleb Stone.
But when a homeless vet is stabbed and dies at her feet, Lalla Bains, being the exasperating, pushy, tenacious gal she is, Lalla believes the dead man deserves a better homicide investigation than what he's getting.
Black Hat Jack -- Joe Lansdale
Joe Lansdale told me long ago, maybe as much as twenty years ago, that what he really wanted to write was a novel about Nat Love, aka Deadwood Dick. It took him a while to get to the point in his career that he was able to write it, but he's been doing research all along and also writing some things about Deadwood Dick. The novel is called Paradise Sky, and it will be out from Mulholland Books next year. But if you're eager to see what it will be like, Subterranean has published a novella about Deadwood DickThe story is about the second battle of Adobe Walls, which is famous in Texas history. There's no record of Nat Love's being there, but he could've been, along with his good friend Black Hat Jack. There are a good many accounts of the battle, where a handful of men (and a couple of women) stood off hundreds or thousands of Comanches and Kiowas and members of a few other tribes, but history plays into Lansdale's hands because the accounts agree on almost nothing. This leaves Lansdale free to include some of the things that are pretty well documented, like Billy Dixon's amazing rifle shot, and to make up pretty much whatever he wants to.
If you're familiar with Lansdale's work, you know what to expect: plenty of blood, action, and violence, lots of cussing, an abundance of rough-and-tumble humor, occasional social commentary, and even a few tender moments. It's all here, and it's all great fun, just the thing to to enjoy on its own and to whet your appetite for Paradise Sky.
PaperBack
Dorcas Knight, The Flesh Is Willing, Midwood, 1962
Dorcas Knight is my new favorite author's name.
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