Road trip with dogs: My post-surgical dog (pictured in the background) is doing well. She’s down to her last painkiller, which we call BoxyContin.
I’m up late reading “Purity,” which I’m finding “meh” so far. What are you up do this weekend?
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Domestic Politics, Open Threads
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Steeplejack (phone)
That is a hilarious picture, Betty! The essence of “not the ones I would have chosen but we had to bring them” traveling companions.
srvru
Redford, Krugman, Warren and now Buffett:
Even liberals agree.
NotMax
Saw a really nice cane sofa at the Habilitat store for a spectacularly low, nearly unbelievable price today.
Several of them, actually (some just couches, some sleeper sofas), obviously donated by a hotel or hotel-like tourist place. In darn fine like-new shape – only obvious wear is that the material of the cushions is faded, but new seat covers will take care of that.
Thought about it while running errands for the rest of the day, and gonna keep all digits crossed at least one is still there tomorrow when I can get access to a pick-up truck.
Futon in the living room has served well and valiantly, but impossible to pass by an upgrade like this for the price.
SarahT
Helooooo, Betty ! Drunk New Yorker here. Your dogs are brilliant, as usual. Just drunkmailing to to say that IMHO, the Tribute in Light is forever beautiful, and THE only 9.11 monument we need. Everything else can go to hell, especially tour buses full of grinning tourists and their selfie sticks. That is all.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Hope you find your sofa! I’m in the market for some shelves and organizing bins. My snowbird MIL is migrating south for the winter, and the spare room she uses when she visits us has accumulated stuff while she was away. Need to get all that squared away this weekend.
Amir Khalid
Glad to see Patsy Marie’s doing fine.
The smog here (the Haze, as we say) is so bad
todaythat the Twin Towers of Petronas, which on a clear day dominate the view from my bedroom window, seem indistinct and sepia-tinted. The air stings my eyes. Some people are wearing filter masks to go out. I hate this. It’s going to be like this for quite a while, so we’re told.Betty Cracker
@SarahT: Do people really do selfie sticks at the memorial? Lord that’s tacky. I was there last summer, but I visited early in the morning on a weekday, so it wasn’t too crowded. I’ve seen pictures of the lights. I can’t imagine anything more appropriate.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Is the haze from vehicle exhaust and fog like LA?
RK
I think I’ve found the cure for Hillary’s lack of likability. Get Andrew Cuomo in the race. Anyone becomes palatable after listening to that guy. Funny pic.
SarahT
@Betty Cracker: Yes, they do. And apologies if I sound like one of those “Never Forget” fetishists – dog forbid ! But hey, moron – try and save the “wacky” antics for Times Sq., right ? Okay… SO sorry to vent, but it’s either vent here or cock punch a fratboy. Thanks for your patience, and please do check out the “Tribute in Light” because it’s beautiful and appropriate and all we should need. Thank you, Betty – you and your dawgs rool like Ozzy.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
No. Agricultural activities in parts of Indonesia like Kalimantan (their part of Borneo) e.g. burning off crops by big plantations and forest clearing, often by loggers.
SarahT
@RK: Great idea !
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
As the normal trade winds have been uncharacteristically absent for most of this summer, we’ve been experiencing a lot of haze (vog) from the volcano on the Big Island.
Plays hob with the sinuses.
magurakurin
Selfie sticks suck. It used to be a nice little point of human interaction when tourists and local visitors would ask each other to take a picture for each other. Now it happens much less. Sigh. Now, when we were kids….
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Back at work. I’ve had four days off in the last month, but hopefully the craziness is settling down. Instead, I’m focusing on the craziness of trying to have the manuscript ready for copy editing by the end of the month.
I did get a published author to agree to read the book to see if she likes it well enough to give an endorsement. She’s not big time and I have no idea if her name will mean anything to anyone not hardcore into F/SF short stories, which doesn’t describe my novel at all, but I like her, I like her stuff, she’s at least well known among F/SF authors, and she’s a huge hockey fan. So I’m calling it a win.
The other request I’ve sent out so far is to one of the main hockey writers at the Toronto Globe and Mail, who had a blog I was a regular at before he hit the big time. We’ll see how that goes.
NotMax
@magurakurin
When I was in Times Square during the past two weeks, saw too many people with selfie sticks poking out in front of them attempting to navigate the milling crowds, outdoor tables and vehicular traffic. Not only inconsiderate, also dangerous and downright stupid.
BGinCHI
Betty, put that Franzen shit down and read something else. There are loads of better books out there.
Here’s a recommendation if you like mysteries that have terrific characters and do a great job with local setting and history:
She’s Leaving Home, by William Shaw.
First in a trilogy (the second came out earlier this year) and a brilliant, constantly surprising look at London in 1968.
BG Stamp of Approval.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Road trip. 4:30 am in Puebla, NL. Gotta get to Benito Juarez airport before 10:00 to fly back home to Detroit.
If the travel gods smile on me I’ll get upgraded on this flight. The bad news is I’m all out of Discworld books to read and the trip will be too boring if I can’t find a bookstore with an English section at the airport.
I was supposed to come home Friday but it’s just as well. I’m not a nervous flier but if there’s one day I want my feet on the ground it’s 9/11.
raven
I’m reading The Death of Santini. When I rad “My Losing Season” I wrote Pat Conroy and he wrote me back!
BGinCHI
@raven: Is it set in Beaufort too?
raven
@BGinCHI: Like “My Losing Season” this is not fiction so there is a good bit of Beaufort. We were just there and I wish I had read it before we went this time. We looked at the house where Pat lived with his wife without knowing it! The other thing I didn’t know was that he and his old man lived in Atlanta after Don was dumped by his wife. They didn’t love together but they hung out a great deal. The Chicago part is really interesting. Not surprisingly the Conroy clan are you run-of-the-mill Windy City Irish racists.
BGinCHI
@raven: Yeah, those are rare….
I didn’t know about the Chicago connection. But I don’t know much about that guy.
Beaufort is nice to visit but I don’t think I could live there. OK, maybe for 2 months in the winter.
Mustang Bobby
It’s the weekend of the Miami New Stages Festival, and my play “Which Way To The Beach” is in the Miami 1-Acts tonight (Saturday) and tomorrow. Yesterday afternoon the director texted me with an emergency: the woman playing a lead role was sick and can’t go on. Augh! I called a friend who had read the part and she immediately agreed to jump into the role, so we’re meeting at the theatre at 10 a.m. to teach her the blocking.
It’s just one of the things that makes theatre interesting. See you at the show.
raven
@BGinCHI: His old man played high school basketball at the same time as my dad and I am convinced that they must have at known each other. In those days there were only eight suburban high schools in all of Chicago! The entire family was enraged when The Great Santini came out attacked Pat until Don put a stop to it.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Break a. . . .aw you know!
BGinCHI
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats! Lots of stress but that’s theater.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Thanks!
@BGinCHI: Yeah, and that’s why I’m the playwright, not the director.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
Awake at 3:26am. Just finished reading a book by a friend, his first book, “Windswept”. Sci-fi. He’s reading from it on Sunday at a rum bar in Seattle. We haven’t seen him in about 12 years but kept in touch online. Should be fun.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats!
We seem to have a lot of writers on this blog. I’ve bought several books now that were written by people here.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mustang Bobby:
My playwright friend says all the real drama happens offstage!
ultraviolet thunder
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
I’ve been paid to write but I’m terrible at it. Actually I was paid to invent and build stuff. My pathetic writey-bits were rendered publishable up by editors. I have two articles in the new Best of Make Magazine compilation book. But I couldn’t write my way out of a damp paper bag with an overused metaphor in each hand.
I’ve just started reading the Discworld books. The first two are basically gag collections loosely hung on a sketchy plot. Amusing but not very satisfying. I was impressed by the cleverness but thought the goal was a rather modest one for Pratchett’s large talent. I was pleased to find the third, introducing the witch Granny Weatherwax is an actual novel. I’ll continue reading and see what happens.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@ultraviolet thunder: They get better if you read them in order, but I usually tell people to start with Guards! Guards! because it’s short and funny and by the time you’ve finished it you thoroughly understand Ankh-Morpork. The first one I read was Equal Rites, a library discard because the poor thing had been loved to death. I worked for the library and was handed a box of books that were unwanted, even by the Friends of the Library. They told me I could keep whatever I liked, and that book just jumped into my hand. It’s a mess, paperback covers coming off. Sir Terry signed it “burn this book!”
OzarkHillbilly
Somebody was asking yester morn if there was anything new about the Phoenix sniper. Probably old news by now but ask and receive:
Phoenix highway shootings: one man detained for questioning
Reading the article, the operation has much more of a Richard Jewell feel to it than it does an Eric Rudolph vibe.
greennotGreen
@SarahT: I traveled to New York in October of 2001 forn a pre-arranged meeting. Our bus route to get to the meeting locale took us near the ruins of the towers; I could see them just down the street – charred, twisted girders. I cannot imagine anyone visiting that as a tourist.
The 9-11 monument however…I’m sure there are too many tourists who simply have it on their list along with the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, but there must be a few who think of it as a “Screw you!” to terrorists in the same vein as the holocaust survivor and his grandchildren dancing in front of death camps. Of course, YMMV.
ultraviolet thunder
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
I finished Equal Rites last night. I don’t usually go in for fantasy, or much genre fiction at all, but this was a very satisfying book.
I started in publication order, but people have recommended reading them in order depending on the characters and plots. Apparently there are concurrent parallel series of stories. I think Mort is the next one in publication order. I wish I could start it today, as I have 13 hours of travel ahead of me but it’s 2 time zones away.
greennotGreen
@raven: I haven’t read the book. I hated the movie. Any mother who stands by and watches her children be abused like that (in the movie it was psychological abuse only) is not much better than the abuser. Totally painful from beginning to end.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@ultraviolet thunder: I hope you stay with Pratchett because eventually you will get to Night Watch, and Wee Free Men, and books with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. I don’t care as much for Rincewind but those books have their moments.
Steeplejack
@ultraviolet thunder:
I urge you to consider picking a Discworld “subseries”—e.g., the City Watch, Death, the Witches—and proceed through the books that way. The whole series is great, but all the early books are a level or two down in quality from the later ones. Pratchett really caught fire somewhere around the early ’90s. If you try to read the mega-series in chronological order, you’re going to go through a stack of passable books before you get to the great ones. If you go the subseries route, you typically have one merely okay novel and then you get into the really good stuff.
Reading guide here.
Steeplejack
@ultraviolet thunder:
If you must go in publication order, the Wikipedia article is a good reference.
ETA: Also, if you had a Kindle or Nook, you could get an instant fix! That’s one of the best things about an e-reader. Many’s the time I have finished a crime novel in bed late at night and immediately ordered the next in sequence.
But maybe ordering doesn’t work when you’re in Mexico?
Steeplejack
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
I agree that the Rincewind subseries is the least good. It’s not bad, but the others are better.
Bruuuuce
@Steeplejack: There’s an update to that, but it isn’t current. The last Discworld book, The Shepherd’s Crown, should go at the end of the Tiffany Aching series. (Just finished it, and it’s good, but not as good as most DW books, because apparently Sir Terry didn’t have time to do his usual second pass, so both the pacing and the language feel a little rough.)
Updated reading order: http://imgur.com/r/discworld/qHa8Zf5
gogol's wife
Love the picture!
Inspired by watching the 2002 miniseries, I’m reading The Forsyte Saga in those moments before beddy-bye, and it is kickass good! I don’t get why Galsworthy is sneered at. Now Poldark (which I’m reading to my husband as he cooks dinner), there’s a potboiler. Enjoyable, though.
Steeplejack
@Bruuuuce:
Thanks! The Wikipedia article needs to be updated.
Tiffany Aching is the one series I have yet to read. Need to get on that. And there are some stand-alones I never got around to. I binge-read almost all of Pratchett about five or six years ago. I stopped in the middle of Moving Pictures, I think because I was experiencing overload and it didn’t have any (or enough?) of the series characters to keep me going.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I highly recommend that you go right away and pay for one of the couches and let them know you are arranging transportation. If they are like my Habitat store, they have a truck and may deliver.
debbie
I’m only about 70 pages into “Purity,” but it seems weaker than his earlier efforts.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
I sent my brother a Kindle link for the first Poldark novel. I am his go-to reference librarian, he loves historical fiction, and he was asking if there were books after seeing part of the TV series. No word yet on if he likes it (or has even started reading it).
debbie
@SarahT:
I agree. The lights should have been the memorial. The birds would have adapted.
Mustang Bobby
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): I’d be happy to sell you copies of my scripts to add to your collection.
(/shameless self promotion.)
shell
Love the traveling dog pix! The one, not Patsy, whos leaning into the front seat…cant decide if she wants to ride shot-gun or take a turn at the wheel.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
It’s a ripping yarn. There are some beautiful landscape descriptions, but the plot is one damn thing after another.
gogol's wife
Did everyone already discuss the fact that Freddie de Boer has made it to the NYTimes Sunday magazine?
Steeplejack (phone)
@gogol’s wife:
About what I thought.
I keep suggesting the Charles Lenox mysteries, because the lifestyle is exactly what my brother dreams of, but so far no luck.
Steeplejack (phone)
@gogol’s wife:
Oh, Lord. On what subject?
Steeplejack (phone)
@gogol’s wife:
Might want to take it upstairs to the more active thread.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack (phone):
Ok. It’s about the corporatization of the university. Looks really boring.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Mustang Bobby: Available on nook or Kindle? We’re trying not to bring any more real books into the house.
Cervantes
@gogol’s wife:
!
Matt McIrvin
@ultraviolet thunder: Equal Rites was, I think, the one where Pratchett first realized he had something on his hands that was bigger than just a parody of extruded fantasy product. If you liked that, you might want to jump ahead to the other Witches books.