Quick Hitts

Finally.  Eight years of incompetence, chicanery, deception, tyranny, and complete disregard for the constitution is finally behind us.  We have awakened from that long, dark nightmare to find ourselves in a warm, soothing bath.

In a pot.

On the stove.

I stopped by Hulu for another dose of Babylon 5, and found this on their front page:

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I never knew MLK once sported a huge, fluffy afro.  But it works for him.

Action on Smoking and Health is one the most vile anti-smoker organization out there.  They sell kits to help nannies get smokers kicked out of their homes and make custody battles more contentious. They do this with a site almost as ugly as their black, shriveled souls.

Last week they made the rookie mistake of hotlinking an image from The Stogie Guys.  The Guys didn’t get mad, they got even, and for twelve hours the ASH site looked like this:

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A few days ago I went in for a medical examination, where the doctor boldly goes where no one has gone before.   Prepping consisted of stripping down to nothing but a flimsy hospital gown, lying under a flimsy blanket and getting an IV.

The nurse bringing me from the prep room to the examination room said, “The halls are pretty cold.  Would you like a warm blanket?”  I said, “Sure,” and she said “I’ll get one from the machine.”

It felt wonderful, warm all over, even better than crawling under an electric blanket on a cold winter night.  As I was wheeled into examination room I said to the doctor, “I want to get one of those blanket warming machines.”

She said, “You already have one.  It’s called a dryer.”

Last summer two of the best parties at DragonCon were thrown by Podiobooks.com, one on Friday night, one on Saturday. It featured an open bar (donations accepted). At one point Scott Sigler was behind the bar and he poured me a beer. I said, “Someday when you’re a bestselling New York Times author I can say ‘Scott Sigler once served me a beer.'”

Scott Sigler is now a New York Times Best Seller author. Scott Sigler once served me a beer.

His book “Contagious” debuted at #33 on the NYT Best Seller list. And he got there by giving his stuff away. He also got there by writing a kick-ass novel – generosity won’t make a lousy book a success – but a lot of authors write kick-ass novels that never get published. Many who get published find their books languishing in the remainder bins. Scott’s counter-intuitive business model of giving his novels away via free podiobooks and PDF files built a huge fan base that helped this novel hit the bestseller list the first week it was published.

Congratulations on your success, Scott. You deserve it, not only for your great fiction, but for all the hard work you’ve put into promoting it and making it easily and freely available to everyone.

Last week Donald Westlake, America’s best novelist, died at the age of 75.

His 100+ novels, all written on manual typewriters, covered different genres. Sometimes he used different writing styles. He wrote some fantasy and science fiction, but many of his books fell into two categories: small time crooks tangling with big time crooks, and rather ordinary people finding themselves in unusual situations that allowed them to enrich themselves by doing horrible things.

I’ve read dozens of his novels and throughly enjoyed every one. Two of my favorites are “Humans” and “The Axe.”

In “Humans” God is fed up with humanity and sends one of his angels to do some butterfly-effect tweaking that that will result in the destruction of the world. The Devil gets wind of it, and wanting to protect his choice gig sends one of his vilest demons to discover what the Angel is doing and stop him. The result is wonderfully disorienting – you’re cheering for the demon.

In “The Axe” a middle aged man is laid off from a highly skilled but very niche job. His life is falling apart, and after a few failed job interviews he decides to check out his competition. He places a fake ad in a trade paper and collects résumés. He finds six people who are his most likely competition, and then a thought occurs to him – what if something happened to them?

He becomes obsessed with the idea, and eventually, with a great deal of trepidation, kills one of them. He’s surprised how easy it was. The second one, though, is gruesome, barely a success. But now that he’s on a roll. . .

Like most of his novels about ordinary people doing evil things, the creepiest effect is your own reaction. The character seems so normal and likable you find yourself identifying with him, understanding his actions, and thinking, just for a moment, “I understand that. It doesn’t seem so bad.”

All of Westlake’s novels feature great characters, sharp dialog, plenty of action, intricate plots, and a healthy dose of humor. Be warned: If you read just one of them you will become hooked and want to read them all.

For decades congress has been demanding that Detroit produce politically correct cars that no one wants.  But now Big Brother has the Big Three by the short and curlies, which gives them a dangerous amount of pull.  Be prepared for small, ugly, dangerous and uncomfortable vehicles that will solve the problem of automobile pollution becuase no one will drive them.

Far too many conservative writers come across as stupid and/or bitter and/or pompous and worst of all, humorless.  It’s refreshing to to find one who is smart and funny, like Iowahawk.  I’ve been enjoying him for quite a while.  And he’s outdone himself with this:

The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition