Happy Birthday, Bob Feller!

One of the greats, sure enough. Age 89 today.

Once Again, Texas Leads the Way

Student Wants On-Campus Porn Club - Education News Story - KSAT San Antonio: "SAN ANTONIO -- A University of Texas at San Antonio student is in the planning stages of forming a pornography club on campus, station KSAT 12 reported.

The student, Riley Jackson Starr, is posting fliers on campus in hopes of recruiting at least five students to Club X, which would watch and discuss sexually oriented materials."

Sir Isaac Newton . . . .

. . . . He invented more than those fig bars.

The MST3K Gang . . . .

. . . . is at it again.

Anna Nicole Smith/O. J. Update

My Way News - FBI Knew of O.J. Simpson Plan in Advance: "LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal agents learned three weeks in advance that O.J. Simpson and a memorabilia dealer planned an operation to retrieve personal items Simpson said were stolen from him, according to FBI reports obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

Dealer Thomas Riccio said he reported to the FBI on Aug. 21 that a collector claimed to have belongings taken from Simpson, and that Simpson wanted to videotape the confrontation with the person peddling thousands of pieces of his memorabilia.

Riccio told AP that he raised the subject while talking with the FBI about an unrelated subject: a video of Anna Nicole Smith. But he said agents dismissed his report, telling him 'they didn't want to be involved in another weird celebrity case.'"

We're from the Government, and We're Here to Help You

News from The Associated Press: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Transportation Security Administration touts its programs to ensure security by using undercover operatives to test its airport screeners. In one instance, however, the agency thwarted such a test by alerting screeners across the country that it was under way, even providing descriptions of the undercover agents.

The government routinely runs covert tests at airports to ensure that security measures in place are sufficient to stop a terrorist from bringing something dangerous onto an airplane. Alerting screeners when the undercover officer is coming through and what the person looks like would defeat the purpose.

But that's exactly what happened on April 28, 2006, according to an e-mail from a top TSA official who oversees security operations."

Suspicions Confirmed

I'm not a fan of Daylight Saving Time. I've never really understood the reason for it because I've never seen any convincing statistics that prove the time change really saves energy. And now it appears that the reason I've never seen any is simple: there aren't any. Yet we go on switching our clocks and screwing up our sleep cycles twice a year. I'm beginning to think my grandmother had it right when she refused to change her clocks. And keep off my damn lawn.

Astronaut Update

Evidence Thrown Out In Ex-Astronaut's Case - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston: "HOUSTON -- The confession and evidence of a former Astronaut accused of attempted kidnapping will not be allowed in court, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday.

Orange Circuit Judge Marc Lubet ruled that the evidence taken from Lisa Nowak's vehicle be thrown out, as well as her jailhouse conversation with an Orlando police detective.

The judge said the actions of the Orlando police detective led to his decision."

20th Century Ghosts -- Joe Hill

Almost 30 years ago I sat down to read a short-story collection titled Night Shift. The author was Stephen King, and I thought the stories were terrific. They had a pulp vitality that I found exciting, and I was thrilled when the author signed the book for me at the World Fantasy Convention in Fort Worth.

And now I just finished reading a short story collection by Joe Hill, who's King's son. I don't plan to compare the two, except to say that Hill is a much smoother writer and more literary than pulpy, even at this stage of the game. He's clearly going in his own direction, and while some of the stories in 20th Century Ghosts can be classified as horror, most of them couldn't, even by stretching the definition.

One of the horror stories is the first one, "Best New Horror." You know exactly where it's headed before you get well into it, but it's that rare kind of story that's all the better for your foreknowledge.

The best pure horror story in the book, though, and the only one that reminds me of the famous father, is "You Will Hear the Locust Sing." It's a direct descendant of E. C. Comics, '50s monster movies, and Kafka. And it has maybe the best line in the book.

"Pop Art" reminded me of a movie I haven't even seen, Lars and the Real Girl. In Hill's story, a boy's best friend is an inflatable doll named Arthur Roth. Unlike the Real Girl, Arthur's fully sentient. He can't talk, but he can write and interact with others. I had no trouble at all accepting this, and the story worked just fine for me. You might feel differently.

"The Black Phone" is a crime story, about a boy who's caught and imprisoned by a serial killer. Great claustrophobic tension, worth your time.

If someone removed one of the nine stories from J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories and put "Better than Home" in its place, I'm not sure I'd notice. That's a compliment.

"Abraham's Boys" is about a famous vampire hunter and his sons, and I liked the way it played out.

The almost title story (no s on the end) is nicely evocative of old movie houses and may be the only real ghost story in the book.

Not all the stories worked for me. "Dead Wood" didn't even seem to be a story at all, and "The Widow's Breakfast" didn't have much of a point. "In the Rundown" seemed too obvious, and "Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead" was a little too soft. I didn't care much for "The Cape," about a boy who can fly, or "Last Breath" (again, too obvious). And while I liked I liked "My Father's Mask" quite a bit because it's unsettlingly weird, I still don't have a clue as to what was happening or what it was all about.

"Voluntary Committal" is the novella that closes the book, sort of, and it was a lot like a story from some '50s SF magazine, maybe F&SF, which might explain why I liked it.

I said that the novella "sort of" closed the book because Hill puts another short story into the Afterword. It's pretty good, too.

Thuglit #21 Now On-Line

If you don't want to read the stories (and you should), I'd advise you to click here just for a look at the cover. And click here for my comments on one of the stories.

When Billionaires Attack (Each Other)

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for the link.

Billionaire Family Feuds - AOL Money & Finance: "Take a billionaire clan, add generational schisms, sibling rivalry, jealousy and greed and you end up with riveting family dramas to rival that of any prime-time television show. While Anna Nicole Smith's inheritance feud with her late husband's son was all over the news, these other blue-blood battles are just as salacious, if not as well-known."

Chupacabra Update

Photo at link.

'Goat sucker' actually a hairless coyote - CNN.com: "SAN MARCOS, Texas (AP) -- The results are in: The ugly, big-eared animal found during the summer in southern Texas is not the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra. It's just a plain old coyote. art.coyote.ap.jpg Phylis Canion holds the head of what researchers determined to be a hairless coyote.

Biologists at Texas State University announced Thursday night they had identified the hairless doglike creature.

KENS-TV of San Antonio provided a tissue sample from the animal for testing. 'The DNA sequence is a virtually identical match to DNA from the coyote,' biologist Mike Forstner said in a statement. 'This is probably the answer a lot of folks thought might be the outcome. I, myself, really thought it was a domestic dog, but the Cuero Chupacabra is a Texas Coyote.'

Phylis Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound bodies of three of the animals over four days in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 90 miles southeast of San Antonio."

Crocs in Jail

Ananova - Police jail croc: "Police in Australia kept a 7ft 9in saltwater crocodile in a cell overnight after it threatened local fishermen.

Officers in Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, say they had 'no other option' after capturing the crocodile late in the evening."

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for the link.

Here They Come to Save the Day!

I'm working on the Oil Can Harry Breed, myself.

US scientists engineer 'mighty mice': "US researchers have engineered a line of 'mighty mice' whose human equivalent would have similar abilities to the bicycling champion Lance Armstrong, according to research published Thursday.

The breed of mice can run six kilometers (four miles) at a speed of 20 meters (yards) per minute for up to six hours without stopping, according to Richard Hanson, a biochemistry professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio."

Like a Knife in the Brain

I mean that literally. X-Ray photo at link, for which thanks to Gerard Saylor.

Troops unite to save soldier knifed in head - Army News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports - Army Times: "It felt like a nasty sucker punch. Yet when he strained his eyes to the hard right, there was something that didn’t belong: the pewter-colored contour of a knife handle jutting from his skull.

Sgt. Dan Powers, stabbed in the head by an insurgent on the streets of East Baghdad, triggered a modern miracle of military medicine, logistics, technology and air power."

Famous Author and Blogger Makes the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Thanks to Steve Stilwell for the tip.

How the D.B. Cooper mystery got a Minnesota twist: "Thirty-six years after Cooper disappeared into the night, America is still fascinated by the case. There are scores of websites, books, movies and songs. The country's only unsolved hijacking has become an iconic back story for everyone who has dreamed of getting away with something or getting away from everything.

'In my case, the fascination is with an unsolved crime that's stuck in my memory for all these years,' said Bill Crider, an author who also has an online pop culture magazine. 'I'm a mystery writer, so I like solutions.'"

Gator Update (Long Island Edition)

100-year timeline at link.

See you later, alligator? Occasionally, Westchester residents do: "MOUNT KISCO - The toothy reptile abandoned in Mount Kisco today marks the 10th confirmed alligator discovery in Westchester County in the last 100 years, according to news reports archived by The Journal News and The New York Times."

Harry Potter Update

Timesonline: J.K. Rowling has completed her first book since she finished her blockbusting series of Harry Potter novels which have sold 400 million copies world-wide.

Fans hoping to lay their hands on the latest work are, however, doomed to disappointment as only seven copies will ever be printed, and only one of those has been put up for sale.

The book - a collection of five wizarding fairy stories entitled "The Tales of Beedle the Bard” - has been handwritten and illustrated by the author herself. To add to its rarity value, the seven copies have been bound in brown morocco leather and mounted with silver and semi-precious stones.

Dead Street -- MIckey Spillane

This one's straight out of the '50s. Jack Strang, a retired NYC cop, discovers that a woman he loved 20 years ago and had presumed dead is still alive and living in a unique retirement village in Florida. The catch is that she's blind and has amnesia. (I'm not giving away anything here that's not in the blurb on the back cover.) And it won't surprise you to learn that whoever tried to kill her so long ago is still after her.

Spillane's style hasn't changed much except maybe to become a bit leaner. Strang calls women "doll" just like Mike Hammer did 60 years ago. (Strang also says that there was a cowboy actor named Buck Jones when he was a kid. Not unless he's even older than I am, there wasn't.) Maybe the violence has been toned down a little, too, and Strang, though known as "the Shooter," doesn't knock off as many hoods as Hammer did in the course of a book.

I've been reading Spillane for 50 years, and I've never been ashamed to admit it. There's been some discussion of his work on rara-avis lately, with a lot of people saying that Spillane's for adolescent minds and so on. Probably true, but I don't care. Entertainment Weekly reviewed Dead Street and gave it an A. I liked it, too, but I certainly wouldn't expect everyone to. In fact, I expect some people will read it and wonder what all the fuss was about. As I said, it's straight out of the '50s, and times and reading tastes have changed. Okay, mine haven't, but you know what I mean.

Spillane completed only the first 8 chapters of this novel before his death. Max Allan Collins wrote the final 3 chapters working from Spillane's notes, and it's a nearly seamless transition. I had fun with all of it. Check it out.

Tires for Tats

Winding Road � Archive � Need a New Set of Dunlops? Just Get a Tattoo: "Only in Vegas… Dunlop is offering a free set of four tires for folks willing to don the Dunlop logo or tread pattern for life. Tattoo artists are on hand to ink the company’s logo on your body. The tattoos are crowd favorites. We hear the line starts at 8:00 a.m. and the first reservations are taken an hour later. Dunlop officials expect all available spots, roughly 20 per day, to be spoken for within five minutes. We hear one guy did it just to get a free tattoo and he was amazed that there were some free tires in the deal."