Haiku² for ron_dickie

as i understand
it this year's necon was
vastly different


Aaahhhhh! Get out of my head!!!!

My American friends seem all in a tizzy about something. I wonder what's up?

My daughter started high school today.

High school!

Man, I feel old...

Swiped from nick_kaufmann and mssrcrankypants

Nick and I have the same director, but I have the bigger budget. ;)

Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...

Sofia Coppola

Your film will be 57% romantic, 34% comedy, 28% complex plot, and a $ 38 million budget.

Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy

All the cool kids are doing it...


First, the rules:

1. You must answer yes or no.
2. You may not explain unless someone asks you to.


Have you ever....

Taken a picture naked? Yes
Made money illegally? Yes
Had a one-night stand? Yes
Been in a fistfight? Yes
Slept with your best friend? Yes
Had sex in a public place? Yes
Ditched work to have sex? Yes
Slept with a member of the same sex? No (Tomo doesn't count!!)
Seen someone die? No
Run from the police? Yes
Woke up somewhere and not remember how you got there? Yes
Worn your partner's unmentionables? Yes
Fallen asleep at work? Yes
Used toys in the bedroom? Yes
Run a red light? Yes
Been fired? Yes
Been in a car accident? Yes
Pole danced or done a striptease? No
Loved someone you shouldn't? No
Sung karaoke? Yes
Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? Yes
Laughed so hard you peed your pants? No
Caught someone having sex? Yes
Kissed a perfect stranger? No
Shaved your partner? No
Given your private parts a nickname? No
Gone in public without underwear? Yes
Had sex on a rooftop? No
Played chicken? Yes
Mooned/flashed someone? Yes
Slept naked? Yes
Blacked out from drinking? Yes
Felt like killing someone? Yes
Had sex more than 5 times in one day? Yes
Been with someone because they were in a band? No
Taken 10 shots of liquor in a day? Yes
Shot a gun? Yes
Gone outside naked? Yes



Heh. I'd forgotten about some of them!

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080723-comic-con-cooke-parker.html

Darwyn Cooke (JLA: THE NEW FRONTIER, THE SPIRIT) will be adapting the first four Parker novels by Richard Stark, aka Donald E. Westlake, into graphic novels.

This pleases me greatly.

My first Necon proved to be the first of many for me now. As others have told me, it's like crack: One hit and you're hooked. And baby, am I ever hooked!

As I understand it, this year's Necon was vastly different than previous years', but that didn't hinder the fun as far as I could see. Here's just a few things the Booth family had to deal with this year:

- a last minute venue change where not everybody could stay under one roof

- the only ice machine in the hotel breaking down for the entire weekend

- nigh inedible food from the hotel kitchen

- a drunken Canadian

- a medical emergency involving Peter Crowther and a mosquito

- a thieving member of the hotel staff (later arrested!)

- other, non-con, guests in the hotel complaining about the noise

- Smoke Nazis!

- courtyard lights that worked only when they wanted to

All that, and it was still one of the best times I've had at any convention!

It was also great to meet several people I've only known online for years now, such as bev_vincent, leethomas, lokilokust, mssrcrankypants and Steve Griglak aka NJhorror from various message boards.

Likewise, it was great to see dan0oo, horrorofitall (even if only briefly), k_dunlap, kelliwithani82, marysang, nick_kaufmann, redredrage, susantaylor, Beth Blue, Maurice Broaddus, Deb Kuhn, Wrath James White, NancY and Phyl Kalanta, and Kelly Laymon again. I also got meet Kelly's mother Ann, who is one of the sweetest, kindest people on the face of this planet.

I also had two of the most awesome roommates a man could ask for in Joe 'Tomokat" Branson and Bob Ford. Bob and I usually wound up in bed together and Joe and I... Well let's just say there's a couple of pictures that will probably surface soon enough. Anyone care for a bean?

All in all, a most enjoyable weekend. I look forward to recovering from it and doing it all again next year. Dan, Bob and Mary Booth all deserve huge kudos for doing this each and every year. My hat is off to all of them and everyone else who helped make this a fantastic weekend.

Note to self: When checking friends list, be sure you're actually logged in so you see 'friends only' posts! Apparently I've missed some stuff.
I don't have the time to respond to them all on their own LJs, so I'll just do it here: Yay! Good for you! Aw, I'm sorry to hear that. Up your what? New jobs rock! Mmmm, bras.

I think that about covers it. 

In other news, my mother-in-law has been admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure and high enzyme levels in her liver. Treatment for these tend to conflict with one another (as well as her diabetes and other assorted ailments), so we're all on pins and needles right now. I've already lost a parent, my wife has not. I hope she doesn't have to experience that quite yet.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I got re-certified in First Aid and CPR.

What happens today? A co-worker of mine has a stroke.

Early fifties, helluva nice guy. This is his third, apparently. There wasn't much I could do for him besides make him comfortable and call for the amublance, but still rather scary.


What happened to the days when people just asked me where the band aids were?

Not sure how to embed YouTube video, so here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zf_icB105U

With the proliferation of book trailers, this one stands out in that it's more a short interview with the author rather than just flat images and text thrown at you.Not that there's anything wrong with that, this one just felt a bit more personal thanks to the author's presence. Take note out there! Check him out on the web at http://www.allanguthrie.co.uk/

I like Guthrie's work and will be picking this one up. If you have two minutes to spare, watch the trailer and see what you think.


(P.S. He's got a sexy Scottish accent if that makes any difference!)

In honour of St. Patrick's Day, here's some books by Irish authors that you should read:

This Irish bad-boy thriller -- set in the hardest streets of New York City -- brims with violence, greed, and sexual betrayal.

"I didn't want to go to America, I didn't want to work for Darkey White. I had my reasons. But I went."

So admits Michael Forsythe, an illegal immigrant escaping the Troubles in Belfast. But young Michael is strong and fearless and clever -- just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month. Michael and his lads tumble through the streets, shaking down victims, drinking hard, and fighting for turf, block by bloody block.

Dodgy and observant, not to mention handy with a pistol, Michael is soon anointed by Darkey as his rising star. Meanwhile Michael has very inadvisably seduced Darkey's girl, Bridget -- saucy, fickle, and irresistible. Michael worries that he's being followed, that his affair with Bridget will be revealed. He's right to be anxious; when Darkey discovers the affair, he plans a very hard fall for young Michael, a gambit devilish in its guile, murderous in its intent.

But Darkey fails to account for Michael's toughness and ingenuity or the possibility that he might wreak terrible vengeance upon those who would betray him.

A natural storyteller with a gift for dialogue, McKinty introduces to readers a stunning new noir voice, dark and stylish, mythic and violent -- complete with an Irish lilt.

'The night of my mother's funeral, Linda Dawson cried on my shoulder, put her tongue in my mouth and asked me to find her husband. Now she was lying dead on her living room floor, and the howl of a police siren echoed through the surrounding hills...' Ed Loy hasn't been back to Dublin for twenty years. But his mother is dead, and he has returned home to bury her. He soon realizes that the world waiting for him is very different from the one he left behind all those years ago. 'Tommy said you found people who were missing', Linda Dawson tells him the evening of his mother's funeral. Linda's husband has disappeared. She doesn't want the police involved. So reluctantly, Loy agrees to investigate. And suddenly in this place where he grew up - among the Georgian houses, Victorian castles, and modern villas of Castlehill - Loy finds himself thrown into a world of organized crime, long-hidden secrets, corruption and violence. And murder.

Still stinging from his unceremonious ouster from the Garda Siochana-The Guards, Ireland's police force-and staring at the world through the smoky bottom of his beer mug, Jack Taylor is stuck in Galway with nothing to look forward to. In his sober moments Jack aspires to become Ireland's best private investigator, not to mention it's first-Irish history, full of betrayal and espionage, discourages any profession so closely related to informing. But in truth Jack is teetering on the brink of his life's sharpest edges, his memories of the past cutting deep into his soul and his prospects for the future nonexistent.Nonexistent, that is, until a dazzling woman walks into the bar with a strange request and a rumor about Jack's talent for finding things. Odds are he won't be able to climb off his barstool long enough to get involved with his radiant new client, but when he surprises himself by getting hired, Jack has little idea of what he's getting into.Stark, violent, sharp, and funny, The Guards is an exceptional novel, one that leaves you stunned and breathless, flipping back to the beginning in a mad dash to find Jack Taylor and enter his world all over again. It's an unforgettable story that's gritty, absorbing, and saturated with the rough-edged rhythms of the Galway streets. Praised by authors and critics around the globe, The Guards heralds the arrival of an essential new novelist in contemporary crime fiction.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I chose each of these for the simple reason that they are all the start of series characters for each author. They've each published more after these novels so, especially in the case of Bruen, they have backlists just waiting to be explored. If you havn't read any of these guys, I hope you check them out and enjoy them as I have.

Despite the huge amount of snow we've had fall on us, we have yet to break the record set in the winter of 1971.

You could have fooled me.

( Big pictures! )

I'm back on LJ. I'll try to keep it interesting.