i cannot pull one over on my BFFF

Category: dribblings

so i called laura, like, 10 minutes ago, right? because i wanted to tell her something cool, right?

so i call her and i’m all, “hey BFF, how are you?”

and she’s all, “good. how are you?”

and i’m all, “fine.”

and she’s all, “you’ve been drinking haven’t you?”

and i’m all, “what?! it’s only 4 o’clock. why would i… i mean, damn, how can you tell?”

“ha!”

“gah, was i slurring? i didn’t slur! i just said, “hi.” was it that i called you BFF?”

“no. there’s a lilt.”

“a what? am i THAT transparent? i can’t believe… i said three words!”

“there’s more like a… a concealed gleefulness… in your voice.”

“damn. you’re good.”

“i know.”

2 Comments | Permalink

Tags:

5. The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King

Category: 50 Books

5. The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King

This is book 5 in the Kate Martinelli series. It had the same problem as the last one in that when it started it felt like I had skipped a book. Apparently (and I read this four weeks ago, so I might not have all this correct) something like 8 years has gone by, and now Kate and Lee have a three year old daughter, Nora. So it seemed a bit too much of a gap really, because at the end of book four they were talking about trying to have a kid. So like I say, seems there’s a book missing.

That being said, this is one of the most solid mysteries I’ve read in a while. You can really tell that the author has a genuine love for the mystery genre. Plus, as an added geek bonus, within the story is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche which, not only appealed greatly to my “I Heart Metafiction” t-shirt that my brain wears, was also great fun to read.

The ending (not the solving of the mystery, just the end of the book), don’t worry, I won’t spoil it if you haven’t read it, seemed really rushed and honestly, it felt like it came out of nowhere. So while I didn’t enjoy the character path of this one, it was by far the best and most enjoyable mystery.

Leave a Comment | Permalink

Tags: ,

4. The Inner Circle by Mari Jungstedt

Category: 50 Books

4. The Inner Circle by Mari Jungstedt

Ah, the first Scandinavian crime fiction of the year. This is book three. Unfortunately I haven’t read the other two, so I wasn’t familiar with the characters. That didn’t bother me too much. The serial killer mystery was was pretty tight. The writing seemed a bit choppy in places, but I’m guessing that has more to do with the translation from Swedish to English than anything else.

And of course the book had me at Viking Age history/myth/religion. There’s a word…, but I’m not sure if my character map has it. let me- ha! it does! (how dare I doubt the character map.) Æsir, which is the group of Norse gods: Odin, Thor, and Frey (and probably others, those were the main three mentioned in the book.) Right, tell me you’re not a sucker for Viking stuff.

The main characters all seem to be in transitional places, so I’m assuming if I’d read the previous books all of those situations would have seemed more important. It didn’t seem to have a happy ending, but perhaps it had a realistic ending. And of course someone seems to get killed for no reason. *sigh* I know there’s a reason for it, really I do. I’m not all rainbows and popsicles over here, but still, I was really getting to like that character. But that’s Swedish crime fiction for you.

3 Comments | Permalink

Tags:

2.02.09 Groundhog Day

Category: dribblings

O, blessed Groundhog!
why do you taunt us like that?
you big ugly rat.

groundhog haiku. just for you.

The Onion is still awesome.

6 Comments | Permalink

3. Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman

Category: 50 Books

3. Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman

This novel was fantastic. It was very much like reading a Coen Brothers movie. It’s really dark, but has some very funny characters and moments. It’s a wonderful read. The story takes place in Owl, North Dakota in 1983. The story is told from the perspective of three people: Horace, the old man, Julia, a young teacher who had just moved to small-town Owl from big-town Milwaukee, and Mitch, the high school kid who’s on the football team. However, they aren’t telling the story so i guess there’s kind of this fourth character who tells the story.

It’s a slice of life kind of thing, reminding me of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio only dark and really funny.

It gets 0 Cansecos because it was perfect. Wait, there was one thing that kind of bothered me. The high school kids all talked like kids today. It’s like they were using the slang of now instead of the slang of nearly 30 years ago. I realize that I’m nit-picky though.

I’m sad that this is the author’s only fiction book. Mr. Klosterman does have a few nonfiction books though, so that rocks.

2 Comments | Permalink

Tags:

sorry!

Category: Uncategorized

sorry for no updates lately, i’ve been reading and um, other stuff.

i’m reading The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur and really, after reading a chapter of this it’s hard to get on here and complain about… anything really.

1 Comment | Permalink

4 AM and all is well… that ends well?

Category: Uncategorized

it’s 4 in the morning, but i’ve been up since 3. i wake up at 3 a lot. it’s usually not a big deal. it’s mostly that i have to get up and use the bathroom. i have to wazz around 3am pretty much every day. it usually doesn’t bother me. i enjoy getting up out of a warm bed to stumble around the room and make my way into the bathroom (or wazzatorium, as we call it, sometimes) all in the dark with only the glow from the clock radio to guide me.

it’s rarely a big deal. i can do my business and find my way back to bed with no trouble. and 9 times out of 10 i can fall back to sleep faster than you’d think possible. in fact, the only way that i can’t fall back asleep immediately is if i start thinking about one thing: money.

this morning was one of those times. with an added Bonus Round for even more fun.

i woke up at 3am on the dot. as if an alarm had gone off. it was just my bladder. but i didn’t get up right away. i was debating: should i get up and relieve myself? or should i go back to sleep and hold off on getting up out of my toasty cocoon?

and then i heard it: a dripping. a steady dripping. the bathroom sink.

the goddamned bathroom sink.

i decided to get up and wazz so’s i could tighten the tap to stop the dripping. because maybe whoever used it last didn’t tighten it enough. this would have been a Best Case Senario.

i get back to bed a little miffed about the faucet wondering how long the damned thing has been dripping when out of left field (i sleep on a baseball field, apparently.) i start thinking about taxes.

well, it’s fucking Game Over for my sleep. that’s all it took, one eensy-weensy thought about taxes. i may as well have snorted cocaine before trying to go back to sleep. and then? what do i hear? of course.

a drip. a drop. a drip. a drip.

and the drips… and the drops… are amplified somehow, although i’ll be damned if i can remember micing the sink. and now that i think about it i haven’t noticed any microphones or other sound equipment in the bathroom. no, but somehow the drips… and the drops… (for there are drips and drops. it’s not one steady noise, nay, sometimes it’s a tinny drip, almost a cracking sound really. and sometimes it’s a drop, a thunking, hollow shout that hits right at the edge of the drain so it gets a great bass sound to it. and still there’s no pattern to it. no real music in it. it’s not a steady dripdripdrop or dripdropdrip. nothing you can hum to. no, it’s a random cacophany of drip drops. not a song at all, but merely a counting of failures.

drip: you didn’t fix the sink.
drip: even your dad, who can fix anything, didn’t fix the sink.
drip: it’s the cold water tap. it’s the cold goddamned water tap.
drop: you’ve “fixed” it twice now.
drip: admit it, you’re gonna have to buy a whole new sink with whole new fixtures even though you just need the new fixtures because the sink is so old
drop: that they don’t even make fixtures to fit that sink anymore.
drip: and maybe if you were getting a tax refund you could buy a new sink.
drop: like you’re not going to owe? ha!
drip: you’ve wasted a decade of your life.
drip: your husband doesn’t love you.
drip: did he ever?
drop: you’ll never have children.
drop: there’s a monster under the bed.
drip: and one by the door.
drop: is it ironic that you’re thirsty?

and as the dripping and dropping Tell-Tale Hearts it’s way through my brain [and just which part of the brain does it shoot through, anyway? because i’m thinking if normal people only use about 10% of the brain, then the drip/drops probably go through one of those unused parts. one of the parts that is dark in a normal brain, but that’s lit up like a Christmas tree in say, a serial killer’s brain.] and the counting of the failures gets more and more dark, and the thoughts seem less and less human and more and more like the thoughts of a pissed off, demon possessed, resentful sink. like maybe he’s sick and tired of being spat in day after day.) echo through the quiet bathroom and bedroom and down into my ear. and they hit my brain like nickels and dimes.

so i tell myself, no! no nickels and dimes! no taxes! you cannot think about money anymore! you must think about something else. anything else.

so i start thinking about Andrew Jackson. like you do. like anyone does, really. i mean, after an hour of crazy dripdrop thoughts doesn’t your mind immediately transition into a rant about Andrew Jackson?
i thought so.

and maybe Jackson is a war hero. maybe he played a part in developing the frontier… or at least, Tennessee. but also? wasn’t he the genocidal, asshole president who wanted to ethnically cleanse the U.S. of Native Americans? and why do we honor him by putting his scary-ass, mad scientist hair wearing, crazy-eyed al pacino-looking, mass-murderer face on the twenty dollar bill? wait, that’s money. and i’m not thinking about money anymore.

yes, he had laserbeam eyes. just like the villains from Superman II. in fact, where do you think they got the idea? and just how did you think he won the War of 1812?
Old Hickory? Old Hickory?! more like Old Fu Manchu Villian Facial Hair Laser Eyes, to me.

and now, it is 5:42 am and i’m going to try to go back to bed.

13 Comments | Permalink

Tags: , ,

2. Blood Sins by Kay Hooper

Category: 50 Books

2. Blood Sins by Kay Hooper

This is book two of the Blood trilogy that goes with the Fear trilogy, Shadow Trilogy, and the Other trilogy that i can’t remember what the word is. It’s all part of the Bishop/SCU series. This one was better than Blood Dreams. For some reason I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight. And I’m glad that she keeps bringing Hollis in (from the other books), but it seems like she doesn’t do that much throughout the book… only stuff at the end. And maybe it would work better if Hollis was sort of the main character in these last few books instead of always bringing in new people and focusing on the new people so much and then leaving the new people behind. I don’t know.

I’d recommend you not read this one unless you’ve read some of the other ones.

On a related note (for a change) I tried to read Hooper’s If There Be Dragons. It’s not part of the SCU series. It’s one of her romance novels. I got a little over 100 pages in, and I couldn’t finish it. I got as far as the wolf part and I thought, “Really? Really. For real? This, we’re going to do this? Really?”

Perhaps it gets better after the 100 pages. But I think I’ll stick with the FBI series.

3 Comments | Permalink

Tags: ,

are the Cansecos old?

Category: Uncategorized

do you think my Canseco rating system is old? is it confusing? is it apparent that the least amount of Cansecos i give a book the better the book? shouldn’t it be apparent that the least amount of Cansecos is always the best… in anything?

what say you? should i stick with the cansecos? or should i go more mainstream and give things “stars” and the more stars the better the book? but would it have to be stars? could it be something more fun?

or would you miss the Cansecos? i think i’d miss the Cansecos.

6 Comments | Permalink

1. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Category: 50 Books

1. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Like last year I started out with some nonfiction by Sarah Vowell. This is always a good bet. You get to feel smart for reading nonfiction, but you’re entertained as well. It’s win-win.

This book is about the Puritans/Separatists who came to America and settled the Massachusettes Bay Colony. It’s fantastic, because Ms. Vowell really loves American history, and you can tell it in how she writes. I will say that this book of hers is much more dense than her other books. I still found it enjoyable, but if you’re thinking that this will be another one of her very funny tour-the-United States-with-her-sister-and-nephew, you may be disappointed.

But you should read this book anyway, because Ms. Vowell’s love for her country’s history is kinda contagious. If nothing else, read the last part of the book where she talks about Anne Hutchinson. It’s brilliant!

Comments Off on 1. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell | Permalink

Tags: ,

← Previous Page — Next Page →