November 2, 2002: There seems to be something wrong with the heat pump. Naturally, since it's Saturday, there's no one to call about checking it. But we won't have much cold weather for a while, so that's not really a problem. Paying for whatever has to be done, now, that would be a problem. Maybe it will start working again. You never can tell.

One of the cats, Sam, has been roaming around the neighborhood too much. We're trying to get him to stay in the house more. He really doesn't like it, or at least he doesn't until he calms down. After he's run for door to door to door and howled for a while, he usually settles down to sleep. This morning he bedded down in the sink.

October 29, 2002: It's finally stopped raining. I was beginning to wonder if it ever would. Not that I'm complaining. We can use the rain, and there was no flooding to speak of here in Alvin. Some places in Houston weren't so lucky.

Maybe the rain is just another sign of the Endtimes. After all, Jackass: the Movie was #1 at the box office last weekend. Somewhere the Four Horsemen are saddling up.

Other signs: Consumer confidence is at a ten-year low. The crime and murder rate is up for the first time in two years. (How is Rush Limbaugh going to blame these things on Bill Clinton, I wonder?)

And, of course, it's been revealed that the U.S. has been secretly working on all sorts of chemical and biological weapons in possible violation of numerous treaties. Now, after we finish bombing Iraq, North Korea, and Russia, we'll have to bomb ourselves!

October 27, 2002: Sam is staying in again today. He tried to climb the dining room shutters, and it took him a while to settle down, but he eventually went to sleep in the den. He woke up while Judy was reading the paper and roamed around and howled a little. Then he went back to sleep in the den. Maybe he'll learn that he has to stay in instead of going out to rove over the neighborhood.

Now that the sniper has been caught, the papers are moving on to other sensations. I didn't see many articles this morning, and not one of those I saw told about the number of times the sniper was stopped at roadblocks during his little spree. A British paper puts the number at ten. The TV footage of the S.W.A.T. team descending on the hapless illegals who used the wrong pay phone shows the sniper's car in the background. He was there watching it all, I suppose.

Uh-oh. Looks like the Rooskies used poison gas on their own people in their big hostage crisis. Now we'll have to go to war with them. Well, not until after we get Iraq. And North Korea. Wait a minute. We're not going to war with North ("Axis of Evil") Korea. Why not? I guess because they didn't try to kill Dub's daddy. (And while we're on that topic, where's the hard evidence that Iraq or Saddam ever actually did that? Probably in the same place all the hard evidence about the Iraq/al-Qaida connection is.)

October 26, 2002: It's been raining here since Monday, and the weather guys say it will continue through Thursday. We're going to need swim fins just to get the newspaper in the mornings.

We're trying to force our youngest cat, Sam, to say in the house more. He likes to wander the neighborhood and visit in other houses. We're the ones paying the annual vet bill of nearly 70 bucks, so we feel Sam should stay with us. He doesn't see it that way.

October 24, 2002: My latest moronic episode: Yesterday Judy was playing bridge in Pearland, so I decided to sneak off to Mervyn's to buy her birthday present. It was raining when I got to the mall, and the wind was blowing up a storm. When I opened the car door, the wind blew it out of my hand. I made a grab for the handle and caught it just in time. Then I grabbed my umbrella and dashed for the store. It was only when I got inside that I realized I'd left the keys in the car. There hadn't been any tell-tale "ding-ding-ding," so I hadn't left them in the steering column, but they weren't in my pocket. I also didn't have the little clicker that unlocked the door because it bork years ago. What if I'd locked the door? Well, I had. I could see the keys lying on the seat, but I couldn't get in. I went to the store and got the nice woman at the "Guest Services" counter to call Mall Security. They came and spent a half hour with a Slim Jim, but they couldn't open the door. I didn't have a cell phone, so I went into the mall and called the auto club. They sent out a guy who arrived about 40 minutes later. He tired for 20 minutes, but he couldn't open the door. He called in, and the service said they'd send another guy. He arrived about 40 minutes after that, and he couldn't open the door at first. However, he had a different device to try, and it worked. After only two or three wasted hours, I started home. What an experience.

October 22, 2002: Actually I have an excuse for not having posted for so long. Judy and I were in Austin at the Bouchercon, where I was Fan Guest of Honor and where we won the Anthony Award for "best short story," the story being "Choclolate Moose," which appeared in Death Dines at 8:30. And is that a long sentence, or what? We naturally had a great time and there were plenty of highlights. Here are a few of them, none of which I am making up:

1. Hearing John Apostolou's superb performance on the duck call in the hotel lobby.

2. Witnessing the spectacle of Bruce Taylor's abject begging as he tried to buy John's wife's duck call. She finally just gave it to him.

3. Hearing Ed Hoch's duck call from the 7th floor balcony in response to John's duck call.

4. Winning (along with Judy) the Anthony Award for best short story. We were very surprised.

5. Hearing Bob Randisi sing harmony with a country band.

6. Learning that Gary Warren Niebuhr once sang "Muskrat Love" in a boy band.

7. Being interviewed by Joe Lansdale.

8. Seeing Elmer Kelton enjoying himself so much at a mystery convention.

9. Going to Rudy's Barbecue with Scott Cupp, Judy, Thom Walls, Bryan Barrett, and Steve Mertz. At Rudy's you get your food in crates and eat if off butcher paper.

10. Being the Fan Guest of Honor and basking in the adulation of thousands.

11. Attending the shortest Bouchercon banquet in recorded history.

I guess eleven is enough or maybe one too many, but there were other highlights as well. I'd corresponded with Fender Tucker, but I'd never met him. I wanted to see the guy who was crazy enough to reprint all the works of Harry Stephen Keeler and bind the individual books in his kitchen, using an iron and a glue gun. He's also publishing The Boucher Chronicles, for which every mystery reader should be grateful.

October 16, 2002: Around 1976, I met Katherine Anne Porter. Someone asked me about that today, and I guess I might as well set my memories down somewhere. The college where I was teaching (Howard Payne University) invited her to come for a symposium and her birthday. She was born in Indian Creek Texas, which no longer really exists but which was near Brownwood, where I was teaching. Porter was around 80 at the time. When I was introduced to her in a motel room as "Dr. Crider," she said, "Oh, Dr. Crider, the pains start right at my wrist and go all the way up my arm!" I explained I wasn't that kind of doctor. Later, my wife and I sat next to her at the big birthday banquet in her honor. She wore a white wedding dress that she'd bought in Mexico when she lived there back in the '20s or '30s, and she also wore a huge emerald brooch, which my wife noticed right away. When she asked about it, Porter said that she made a bundle from Ship of Fools and "Some people buy boats. I bought emeralds." That made perfect sense to my wife. Porter had been to Texas since WWII, so she went with several faculty members (not me, unfortunately) to the cemetery where her parents were buried and had a picnic. Later two of the faculty members visted her in Maryland. We'd heard a rumor that she'd bought a wooden casket in Mexico and that she kept it in her house. I told one of the women to find out. So when Porter was asleep, they snooped in the closest. Sure enough, they found the casket, covered with a sheet. They threw back the sheet and took a picture, which I kept in the lit. book I taught from. I guess it's still there, but the book's in storage. She was invited to appear on stage for the graduation exercises and assumed that she was to hand out the diplomas. She got tired about halfway through and had to sit down, but about half the graduates got their diplomas from her instead of the president. All in all, it was an interesting weekend.

October 15, 2002: You'd think I'd do better on this thing. I can't seem to get things down every day as I'd like to.

I'm interested in the sniper situation in the D.C. area. George Bush finally mentioned the sniper yesterday after only two weeks. I guess the NRA told him it would be OK. What he said was this: "Any time anybody is randomly shooting, randomly killing, randomly taking life, it's cold-blooded murder." You can't tell me this guy's not a genius!

You have to wonder a couple of things at least: why does the sniper take the weekends off? Is he a football fan? And will he shoot someone today? This is pretty damned scary.

October 8, 2002: Judy and I saw Bubba Ho-Tep last night. It's based on a Joe Lansdale story, one that has, according to two people I talked to last week, "the nastiest opening sentence" they ever read. (For the morbidly curious, here it is: "Elvis dreamed he had his dick out, checking to see if the bump on the head
of it had filled with pus again.") The movie script is faithful to the story, which may be why it doesn't have a distributor yet. It's vulgar, hilarious, and even touching. Bruce Campbell is great is Elvis, and Ossie Davis is terrific as John F. Kennedy. I don't know who played the evil mummy. Anyway, Joe was there, and he was in fine fettle. YOu can't blame him. It must be great to sit in a theater with 499 other people who are laughing, yelling, and cheering at lines you wrote.

And another thing: You can read about an actor having a "cult following," but until you see it for yourself, it's hard to believe just what that means. Bruce Campbell is huge with a certain crowd. He did a book signing at the theater, and we got there about an hour after it started. The line was at least a block and a half long. It was still almost that long two hours later when the movie was supposed to start. He agreed to introduce the movie and then go back out to continue signing. He did about 15 minutes of stand-up before the movie and was very witty and articulate, so his book might be pretty good.

October 5, 2002: On Thursday evening, Judy and I went to the Greek Festival in Houston at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral. It's the festival's 36th year, but our first time to attend. Mostly, we ate: pastitsio, spanakopita, tiropita, keftedes, salata, but we also saw the colorful folk dancers and toured the crowded gift shop. All in all, it was fun.

The stock market continues to plummet, and Bush continues to beat his little war drum. Now some experts are forecasting a huge October crash. I hope they're wrong. I'm getting really depressed about teh whole thing. And i still can't figure out how we got from Point A to Point B in the war situation. When did Osama bin Laden cease to be The Evil One and/or morph into Saddam Hussein. First we were going to get Osama, dead or alive. He's probably dead, but no one knows for sure, and he seems to have been pretty much forgotten, just as Afghanistan has. The job there is half done, if that, and yet Dub is all over Saddam. We have to get him. Why? No one will say anything except that he's a danger to us. Why? Well, he just is. He's never made any threats against the U.S., he certainly has given no more aid and comfort to the terrorists than Saudi Arabia has, and yet we have to kill him. Maybe this will all work out, but I know for sure I'll never vote for a Republican as long as I live. No matter how scummy the Democrats might be, they can't match this.

October 1, 2002: What the hell is up with the Turks? First they say they've caught two guys with 33 pounds of weapons-grade uranium. Then they say, well, uh, it was only 5 ounces. How do you make a mistake like that? But wait, there's more. Now they say, well, er, it wasn't even uranium. And I thought the U.S. cops were morons. Maybe the Turk cops smoke ganja.

September 26, 2002: Tomorrow Judy and I are heading to Ft. Worth for the Ft. Worth Book and Paper Show. I'm supposed to be signing A Knife in the Back, but I would easily wind up buying more books than I sign. I keep telling myself that I should turn down these signings, but it's not easy to do. The organizer of this one is the president of the North Texas Booksellers Assn., so that means at least my books will be there and available.

The market has been up for two days in a row now. I'd like to think that it's past the bottom, but I'm still worried about it. Dub still won't talk about it. The war is the only thing on his mind right now.

September 24, 2002: Here's the latest propaganda from the DemocRATS. Seems the DEMONcrats just can't admit that George W. Bush, Our Great President, is the best thing ever to happen to this country. Why can't the stupid LIEberals just give up? We know it's all Bill Clinton's fault!

BUSH-CHENEY: THE FIRST 20 MONTHS

Inauguration Day Now
Dow Jones 10.587 7.986 Down 32.5%
Unemployment Rate 4.2 5.7 Up 36%
Budget 281b Surplus 157b Deficit
Jobs 111.7 million 109.6 million Loss of 2 Million

September 23, 2002: I'm getting really worried about the stock market. Just when you think it can't go any lower, it goes lower. And George W. Bush doesn't seem to notice. He hasn't mentioned the economy in months. All he can do is beat his little war drum and try to get the country into a fight with Iraq, which, as far as I know hasn't ever, not even once, threatened to attack the U.S. If he's worried about nuclear bombs, what about North Korea, Pakistan, and India? They've got 'em and they've threatened to use 'em. But apparently that doesn't bother Dub. He has a one-track mind, and Iraq is on the track. Now Condi Rice is saying we'll rebuild the country and convert it to democracy. Does she have any idea what it would cost to run the economy, feed and clothe the population, and defend them from their enemies for the next thirty or forty years? Maybe. But she doesn't seem to care any more than Dub cares about the economy. The only people worried about the economy are folks like me, recently retired and watching their life savings draining away day by day. What a sorry state of affairs.

September 20, 2002: Went to see The Four Feathers yesterday and was mildly disappointed. I guess I'd been expecting a rousing adventure movie, in the vein of the original. But maybe nobody knows how to make adventure movies these days. For whatever reason, the movie wasn't rousing (at least to me), and why, oh, why does everyone these days seem afraid of color? Even the scenes filmed in the full sun of the desert looked as if they'd been shot inside a curtained room. What's up with that? Are people afraid of real color? I know they don't shoot in Technicolor any more, but surely they can find some film stock that will present something resembling actuality. Sure they can. The Scorpion King had real color. Maybe "serious" directors are the ones who don't want to use vibrant colors. They'd detract from the film's high motives. Gimme a break.

September 18, 2002: Obviously I do this blogging for my own entertainment. Which explains why it doesn't exactly have any focal point. It's just sort of a rambling experssion of what I'm thinking about. And today, I'm thinking about fingernail clippers.

When I went off to college in 1959, my mother gave me a fingernail clipper. It was in a leather case, and it had been a gift from Red Arrow Freight Lines. The Red Arrow logo was on the case. My father worked for Red Arrow, managing the Mexia, Texas, office for many years. That's why we had the clippers in the first place. And I still have them. The leather case is worn out, and you can't see the logo very well. In fact, I took the clippers out of the case and put it aside some years ago. But I use the clippers all the time, just as I've been doing for the last 43 years. What kind of person uses the same pair of fingernail clippers for 43 years? I don't know, but that's the kind of person I am.

September 17, 2002: The birthday party for Judy's mother was a big success. Probably 100 people showed up, and we got some good photos. I managed to catch a cold, so I'm not feeling too well. Should be OK by tomorrow thought.

The geniuses who gave us the 55 mph speed limit in Harris and surrounding counties have finally figured out that they Wrong. Now they're proposing that the speed limits be raised to 65 mph. It really won't matter. When we came back yesterday, there was no one on the highway driving less than 70, and most were going a lot faster than that. So 65 or 55, the real average speed will be around 75.

September 14, 2002: Judy's gone to Thornton to get ready for her mother's big 90th birthday party. I have to go to a banquet tonight, so I'm staying here until tomorrow, when I'll drive up in time for lunch and the party. At the banquet tonight, I'll receive the Catherine Foster Munson award for literature. It's given by Brazoria County to a writer who's made some contribution to Texas literature. I don't know what contribution I've made, but I'm glad to be recognized for my writing. That's always nice. The kink in the rope is that I have a cold. Not a very bad one, but enough of one to be irritated by it. A little coughing, a little sneezing. Too bad.

Today is the bond election for Alvin Community College. Seems to me there are quite a few people against it, but they're mostly poorly informed and ignorant of the facts. There are also some who appear to me to be against the bond for personal reasons, and they're the ones working quietly behind the scenes to undermine anything the college tries to do. There's a good plot for a novel here, and I intend to write it Real Soon Now.

September 12, 2002: We went to Texas A&M on the tenth and deilivered the boxes of material to the Cushing Library. We were treated royally and taken to lunch at the A&M Faculty Club in the Rudder Tower. Joe Lansdale was there to deliver some of his material as well, so it was fun to see him. The Cushing Library is a great place, and it was nice to see how well the books and other items are cared for. My stuff is in good hands.

On the 11th, jerk that I am, I didn't watch any of the TV coverage of the 9/11 terror attacks. There's plenty to be remembered about that day, but TV runs things into the ground with mawkish sentimentality. You gotta wonder if your parents and grandparents spent December 7, 1942, wallowing in rememberances.

September 9, 2002: I went to the college today and collected nine boxes of my "papers" that were still in the office. Tomorrow Judy and I will haul them to Texas A&M, where they'll be housed in the Cushing Memorial Library. I hope those Aggies know what they're getting into, since the twelve boxes are probably only the beginning of the stuff I have for them. I think it's great material, and I'd like to see it preserved properly. I hope that's what they're planning to do.

I have my website up and running at www.billcrider.com, too. It's not finished, but it's good enough. I need to see if I can get it listed on the search engines now.