Belfast Buffoonery: Judges Sans Judgement

The case of Lennox, the dog who was seized in Belfast for being a pit bull despite a DNA test which confirmed he was NOT a pit bull, has taken a sudden tragic turn for the worse.  Scroll down to see my earlier posts about this travesty.

The Belfast City Council Dog Wardens, more commonly known locally as 'sheep fanciers,' kept Lennox locked away in a tiny tiny cage for a year before a judge finally heard the case.

Not that the Wardens had much of a case.  They identified Lennox as a pit bull, a breed prohibited by local law. The Wardens came to this conclusion after engaging in a stunning bit of police work.

They measured Lennox's back legs.  With a cloth tape measure.

Yeah.  That's "CSI: Belfast."  A couple of quasi-literate bumpkins and their mum's old sewing tape.

Anyway, after a lengthy round of finger-counting and open-mouthed division, these paragons of law enforcement declared Lennox a pit bull and carried him off.  Lennox then spent a year in the tiny cage I just mentioned, surrounded by his own feces.

I was appalled at that, until a friend who's been to Belfast assured me that sleeping in a bed of one's own droppings is quite commonplace there.  Oh, a few rich society Belfasters do use fancy outdoor toilets, but they are in the minority.

But back to the case.  This judge, a District Judge we'll call Stupid McStupidson, heard the evidence, wiped drool from his bottom six chins, and declared that Lennox was a menace to public safety, and must therefore be put down.

Unless Lennox's owners can win an appeal, Lennox the not-pit-bull is doomed.

Doomed for the crime of being large and black.

Public safety, Judge Mac MacStupid O'Shaunesy?  Yes, yes, I can see your point.  This dog, which has never harmed anyone, could secretly be procuring anti-tank weapons from North African arms dealers, and burying these weapons in his backyard, just waiting to strike.  You are very wise, District Judge Stupid McStupidson .  Most of us were completely fooled by Lennox's lack of opposable thumbs and speech or writing abilities.

But that makes him the perfect terrorist!

And since Lennox has a spotless record, and since he isn't a pit bull, why else would he have spent a year in solitary confinement?  He must be guilty!

It's all so clear now.  All so obvious.

And all I had to do to understand District Judge  Stupid McStupidson's reasoning was apply a little common sense.  Well, apply a little common sense and huff five cans of cheap gold spray paint.  That knocked my IQ down several hundred points, and now I'm in a perfectly Belfast state of mind!

If I huff another half a dozen cans, thus reducing myself to a mental level somewhere between that of carrots and sand, I might even be qualified to run against District Judge Stupid McStupidson in the next next election!

Wait, wait.  I'd need to move to Belfast to do that.

And even after picking up a drug habit and rendering myself Belfastish, I'm not stupid enough to do that.

PS --

I hope someone will forward this blog post  to the judge.  Then I hope someone else will read it to him, slowly, explaining the big words as they go.  I know that will take time, but I've heard if you keep a bucket of fish handy he'll sit still as long as you keep feeding him.  Try, won't you?


UPDATE 9-30-2011:

In a stunning display of judicial incompetence and profound stupidity, Judge Dereck Rodgers just decreed that Poor Lennox, after spending 18 months locked up, is to be put down.

I am appalled beyond words at the thuggish, brutal cretins who run Belfast.  From the Dog Wardens to the bloated, ham-faced dog 'experts' to the witless judges, Belfast is nothing but a blight upon the Earth.  I wish everyone involved with the prosecution nothing but misery and misfortune.


UPDATE, REDUX --

Lennox was not put down in September of 2011. Instead, he was held in legal limbo, with no visits allowed, while the Belfast legal community struggled with weighty matters including but not limited to 'how to read without sounding out the words aloud' and 'what kind of rash is this.'

Lennox remains on Death Row.

Banned from Belfast!

I knew it was coming.

The Belfast City Council has blocked me from posting on their Facebook page and has deleted all my previous posts.  It seems they do not love having their penchant for murdering dogs spoken about in public.  Or maybe they were simply intimidated at the sight of two-syllable words.  Most of the posts created by residents of Belfast were of the 'wher i gits beere?' variety.  Several were open solicitations for intimate relations with underage donkeys.  And people claim Belfast has no night life!

Honestly, I was surprised to find a Facebook page for Belfast at all.  Setting up any sort of web page seems beyond the grasp of that mob of raging alcoholic leprechaun-molesters -- but wait, they probably paid a human to set them up.  Yes.  I should have realized that immediately, since the Belfast page lacked any references to bestiality, inbreeding, or public urination, which are all time-honored civic traditions in quaint little Belfast.

A judge ruled on Lennox's case a couple of days ago.  Now, let's take a quick look at the facts.  The Belfast City Council Dog Wardens, hereafter referred to as 'Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons,' grabbed Lennox the not-pit-bull after going to the wrong house.  That's right.  The warrant wasn't even for the address at which poor Lennox lived.

Why anyone would have the Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons of the Belfast City Council a written warrant is quite beyond me.  That's like sending my dogs to the grocery store with a shopping list written up in a 32-bit cipher code.  Good things are simply not going to happen.

And they didn't.  The Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons showed up at the wrong house.  Deep in the recesses of their dim little minds, they knew they were sent after a pit bull dog.

I can almost hear the stunted synapses in their miniscule brains struggling to connect.  Pit. Bull. Dog.  Lennox. Dog.  Lennox. Black Dog.

A pair of neurons managed a single brief connection.

Lennox pit bull dog!

And thus poor Lennox was led away.

Led away to languish in a tiny cage filled with his own feces.  Photos prove this.  Worse, Lennox remained in this cage for a year.

A year?  Really, people.  I know the Belfast City Dog Wardens -- pardon me, the Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons -- have a lot to do.  They have to remember what shoes are for.  Every morning for them is a struggle with door-knobs and buttons and a dozen other fiendishly complicated devices.

Just stumbling from the alley beside the pub and down to the Dog Warden office probably occupies most of their morning.

Finally, though, Lennox's case was presented to a judge.

One would think that a judge would posses certain mental qualities.  Detectable brain activity, for a start.  Some meager command of language.  The ability to relieve oneself without soiling one's robes.

That's what one would think.

But remember, this is Belfast.  Belfast, often referred to as the open, running sore of the United Kingdom.  Belfast, land of enchantment, if by enchantment you mean buggery, outdoor lavatories, and frequent encounters with piles of human feces.  That Belfast.

And so, in keeping with a millennia-old tradition of making the kinds of legal decisions that leave mollusks gasping in open disbelief, this Belfast judge decreed that Lennox the dog should be put to death, for the crime of being not-a-pit-bull, having black fur, and not living at the address listed on the warrant.

Way to go, Your Honor.  High-fives and dark skunky beers all around.  Keep up that level of stellar legal work, and you'll be Lord High Mayor of the malodorous trash-heap that is Belfast before you can say 'let's go club some baby seals.'

I don't know what's going to happen to poor Lennox.  I hope that the recent outpouring of rage aimed at Belfast might convince them to relent.  Understand I'm not expecting an appeal to their better natures to work. I don't think anyone on the Belfast City Council has a better nature.  But even a band of bloodthirsty goat-fanciers understands economic loss, and the whole 'Hey, let's kill some black dogs, just for the lulz' attitude isn't helping draw tourists toward the cloud of black flies that hangs like a noisy cloud over Belfast.

If you're angry about the treatment of this dog, let the mouth-breathers on the Belfast City Council know it.

Hit them here on Facebook.  Email the toothless beer-swilling gits here.

And then let's all hope that someone in Belfast grows an extra brain cell or three.

Yeah, it's a faint hope, but that's about all Lennox has right now.

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, A Dog is Probably Dying: Lennox Part Deux

If you're new to my blog, you might want to scroll down and read yesterday's entry before you dive into this one.  

To recap, yesterday I learned about the sad case of Lennox, a mixed breed dog who was seized by the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens in Belfast last year on suspicion of....well, who knows?  Lennox spent five years living peacefully with his family.  There were no complaints about Lennox, from anyone.  He'd never displayed aggression, overturned a tour bus, or even barked all night.  He might have chewed on a rubber ball as a puppy.  Accounts vary.

Perhaps, though, Lennox's incarceration has nothing to do with him at all.  Maybe the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens ran out of kittens to drown.  Maybe the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens were in a foul mood because they woke up and realized all the cool people fled during the Potato Famine.  Maybe the only woman in Belfast lost her razor.

In any case, the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens seized Lennox after determining his back legs were 'pit-bullish.'  Poor Lennox is now on Death Row, crammed in a tiny cage and surrounded by his own feces, because that's the way they roll in leprechaun-infested Belfast.


This makes me angry.  I love dogs.  Unlike the people of Belfast, dogs are loyal, trustworthy, intelligent creatures. Creatures who for some reason love humans.  I've known quite a few humans in my time, dear readers, and 'lovable' isn't the first word that leaps to mind when attempting to describe them.  Mainly because it's only a few brief interludes of inbreeding that separates humans from the drooling primates that reside in scenic Belfast.

I wrote the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens and expressed my views on their policies, their practices, the parentage, and their overall lack of personal hygiene.  A reply may be a long time in coming, since I used words like 'hygiene' and the combined efforts of the entire Belfast City Council may be required to open a dictionary, much less read from it.

Which leads me to wonder -- just what sort of people make up the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens?  Internet sleuth that I am, I soon stumbled across a document which each applicant for the office of Dog Warden must complete.  I'll share it with you, since I believe it explains much about the reasons behind Lennox's sad imprisonment.

APPLICATION OF PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT

TITLE: BELFAST CITY COUNCIL DOG WARDEN

Minimum Physical Position Requirements:

Applicant MUST be able to lift 20 Kg club high enough to deliver lethal blow to puppies.  Ability to stomp kittens and goose-step preferred but not required (will train on the job). 

Hours:

Applicant must rise from their crypt promptly at sunset.  Some Sunday work may be required, if Puppy Croquet games run over.

Renumeration:

The successful Applicant may be paid in Euros or with the blood of infants, as requested.

APPLICANTS MUST COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED:

1) You spot a puppy approximately eight weeks old playing with a pair of children in a private yard.  When you decapitate the puppy, to which screaming child do you present the severed head, the lad or the lass?

2) While on patrol, you receive reports of a tabby cat resting quietly on a sunny window-sill.  After fining the owner and dispatching the feline with a cricket bat in the name of Public Safety, do you also charge the owner remove the cat's remains, and if so, how much?  Be specific.

3) Select which of the following attributes identifies a dangerous dog: 
A) Four legs   
B) Three legs      
C) Any legs, or none    
D) Eyes    
E) A detectable pulse    
F) A tail

4) Tail-wagging by a dog is a sure sign of:  
A) Cannabalism     
B) Allegiance to Satan, the Dark Lord 

C) Both of the above

5) In your tenure as a Dog Warden for the Belfast City Council, you may encounter members of the press who see the tortured carcasses strapped to your Vespa and offer disparaging remarks about your work.  How will you respond to these persons? 
A) Club to forehead     
B) By eating their young

C) Will claim to be Belgian      
D) With blank, vacant stare

Thank you for your interest in this position.  The selected Applicant will receive the corpse of a small terrier as a token of our esteem.

There you have it.  I understand a little better now why our hump-backed brethren across the sea feel compelled to keep poor Lennox locked up for so long and for no apparent reason.

They don't need a reason.  Lennox is a dog.

To the good people of the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens, just being a dog is reason enough.

Ire at the Irish

Who am I mad at tonight?

Ireland.

No, they didn't blow up my favorite pub in the 1970s.  I'm angry with Belfast; specifically, with the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens.  I'm mad because last year, these Dog Wardens (spelled 'goose-stepping Nazi bastards') seized a five year old pet named Lennox from his home.

What misdeed led to Lennox's removal?  Had he bitten a toddler, chased a mailman, growled at a neighbor?

No.  Lennox never did any of these things.  In fact, if Lennox ever so much as befouled a flowerbed no record of this act exists.  He had all his shots and licenses.  He lived indoors with a respectable family.  He was, by all accounts, every bit as dangerous as a damp sponge.  A damp sponge stored in a box.  A box put away and forgotten in the attic.  In your saintly old grandmother's house.  We're talking a Threat Level of Fluffy Pillow here.

But enter the Belfast City Dog Wardens!  Undeceived by Lennox's spotless record of good behavior or the glowing reports from friends and family, these feckless experts in the field of canine sleeper-cells whipped out a tape measure, performed a bit of on-site necromancy, and declared Lennox a slavering, rampaging beast just waiting for the right moment before tearing his way through a nursery school, Cujo-style.

And so they took Lennox away.  Now, I'm not entirely familiar with the laws in Belfast.  I do find it mildly disturbing that beloved family pets can be seized by the approximate equivalent of Wal-Mart greeters after being charged with, um, nothing at all.  Except for being black.  And looking a bit pit-bullish, if one sticks one's head in a bucket of oil and squints just so.

Once the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens had Lennox, the dog's family was kept in the dark.  Again, I find this puzzling -- were the Dog Wardens fearful that Lennox might somehow pass state secrets in and out of his cage?  Was Lennox being held of suspicion of espionage, as well as being somewhat big-boned?

Were the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens trying to break Lennox, convinced he was in fact the notorious Belfast Bank and Vault Robber ("They're always after me lucky charms!")?

We'll probably never know that.  But what we do know is gleaned from a photo of poor Lennox which was leaked to his family.

It shows Lennox in a tiny, tiny metal cage, surrounded by his own feces.  Food or water?

I suppose the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens consider food and water to be luxury items.  Or maybe they lost the recipe for water.

I've written a letter to the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens.  I don't expect a reply, mainly because A) literacy may be a bit of a stretch for people who can't tell pit bulls from mutts, and B) I doubt they like me very much.  Which is fine, because I don't like them either.

The text of my letter is below:


My name is Frank Tuttle.  I am an author and blogger from the USA.


By now you've realized why I'm writing, and you're correct -- this is indeed about Lennox, the dog seized a year ago and held since then on suspicion of possibly resembling something that from a considerable distance and in a dim light might look like a pit bull breed.


I've also seen the photographs of poor Lennox in what passes for acceptable quarters in merry old Belfast.  Tell, me, mister or miss Dog Warden, is it customary for the citizens of Belfast to sleep in small cages surrounded by their own feces?  That certainly doesn't fit with the tourist brochures which depict Belfast.  Or is it only small harmless dogs that are housed in this manner?


Seriously.  You people storm in to a private home, haul away a harmless pet, keep it confined on ludicrous grounds and in deplorable conditions, and you call yourselves 'dog wardens' and 'public servants?'  What's the matter, you couldn't  find openings as bull-stabbers for Spanish matadors?


I'd always thought the Irish were a kind and compassionate folk.  I suppose all those brochures were in error as well.  Note to Self: Call travel agent, cancel any plans to visit Belfast.  I don't do well in cages, feces or not.


I feel certain I'll never receive a reply to this email.  After all, with your busy schedules of goose-stepping through quiet neighborhoods looking for puppies to snatch and inspecting your cages to ensure they are small and filthy, you probably have little time left over to reply to the emails of foreigners.  


But that's okay.  I'm posting this on my blog, for all the world to see.  Hopefully I can educate others as to the attitudes of dog wardens in Belfast.


May a leprechaun piddle in your beer,


Frank Tuttle


I never said I was a very nice person.

I encourage all my readers to visit the SAVE LENNOX website and read the story for yourself.  Oh, and if you'd like to drop the good people of the Belfast City Council and/or Dog Wardens a few lines, here are the addresses.  Tell 'em Frank sent you!

Dog Wardens, Belfast City Council

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Pointless Animal Cruelty

Spain, Spain, Spain.

What am I going to do with you?

First you insist on not only retaining but celebrating the barbaric spectacle (I am not going to call it a sport) that is bullfighting.  Frankly, that's bad enough.  Some nights, when I have trouble sleeping, I stroll down to my secret subterranean lair, pull up a world map on the UberComputer, and put the crosshairs on Spain while I fiddle with the ANTIMATTER ANNIHILATE button.

I haven't pushed the button.  Yet.  Mainly because of Penelope Cruz.  She's Spanish, and up until now that was reason enough to sway me from pushing the button.

But now I see this. Be warned, the link is quite gruesome.  Allow me to summarize for the tender-hearted -- horse abuse is now rampant in Spain, as the economic calamity there renders droves of the newly rich suddenly poor.  Which means thousands of horses are being abandoned at stables, left to starve, or left to suffer any number of other cruel and undeserved fates.

I'd probably have skipped over the story with a shake of the head had a Spanish vet not remarked that she'd seen numerous cases of horses with untreated gunshot wounds to their legs.

Gunshot wounds received when revelers fired shotguns close to the horses' hooves in order to make then dance.

Let that sink in.  There are people out there who find it not only acceptable but amusing to wound horses just to make them dance.

Elsewhere in the article, someone theorizes that the horses are being abused in response to some sort of repressed rage on the part of the formerly wealthy owners.

So again I ask -- Spain, what is your freaking problem?

Spanish crowds mob stadiums to watch some latex-clad jackass prance around and stab a bull until the poor thing bleeds to death. The crowds throw flowers.  Despite dressing like Pee Wee Herman, Spanish matadors have somehow achieved rock star status in Spanish culture, all while performing acts that result in swift arrest in civilized parts of the world.

I'm not sure who disgusts me more -- the crowds or the matadors.

I'm sure you'll all seen those videos of bulls managing to skewer some slipper-clad twit of a matador.  Or videos of an enraged bull leaping into the stands and trampling a few 'spectators.'

I cheer at both.  The video I really want to see is the one in which a bull gives a bovine colonoscopy to a matador before flinging him into the crowd and then leaping atop the shrieking mob until blood and cheap wine run down the stands.  Followed by a rushing inferno that roasts each and every 'fan' while they crush each other in a vain attempt to escape.  And then maybe a news helicopter crashes into the fire, just to make absolutely sure there isn't one single survivor.

I'd get the Blu-Ray of that.  And laugh for the full length of it.

I know full well Spain doesn't have a monopoly on animal cruelty.  Americans fight dogs to the death every day.  But at least we arrest them when we catch them, and we don't set the dogfights in arenas and praise the courage of the idiots running the shows.

I think I've had it with Spain.

I think the next time I have trouble sleeping, I'm not only going to press the ANTIMATTER ANNIHILATE button but hold it down until all those geologists who've spent years wondering what Earth's mantle looks like can stroll over to the edge of the smoking crater and have themselves a look.

Yes, Spain, even Penelope Cruz can't save you from my wrath now.

MidSouthCon 29 Roundup, With Pics and Darrell Award Goodness

It's a cold windy day in Mississippi, and the travelling Tuttles are home after enjoying the many sights and sounds of MidSouthCon 29.

I've got pics!  They're below.  I'm using them a bribe, hoping you'll stick around for the text too.

My big news from the Con is of course the Darrell Awards for 2010.  The Cadaver Client won the 2010 Darrell Award for Best Novella.  And much to my surprise, The Banshee's Walk won the award for Best Novel.

First of all, I need to thank my editor at Samhain Publishing.  Without Bethany Morgan and her patient, wise editing, the Markhat stories and books would all still be languishing on my hard drive.  So Beth, a huge thanks to you!

And of course a huge Elvis thank-you-very-much to the hard-working Darrell Awards folks, who read huge stacks of entries every year with little or no thanks.  So thanks, all!

Now, about the Con.  I had a great time, met some gracious and fascinating people, talked to a zombie or two, got to rub elbows with other writers and publishers, and sat in on some great panels.  I was reassured to hear that no matter our places in the publishing food chain, we writers all seem to struggle with the same issues and jump much the same hurdles.  At least that hasn't changed.

I was surprised to see so many publishers walking around above the ground.  To hear the news coming out of the Big Six, you'd think the publishing industry was nearly as decomposed as the zombie pictured below.  But the small presses at the Con appeared to be doing just fine.  They're selling new books and signing new writers.  That's good news indeed.  Check out Yard Dog Press for a great example of a small press doing big things (wave to Selena!).

I'd need a kick in the head if I didn't also mention the artists.  Look, I've got a couple of Michael Whelans, a signed Vincent Di Fate, some pretty good stuff.  But the Art Room at the Con was a real eye-opener this year.  There are some fantastic artists out there, doing incredible work.  We grabbed a piece and even got to meet the artist, which as a blast.  You should check out Nene Thomas online.  Wow.  Just wow.

Pictures, I promised you pictures, didn't I?  Okay.  Here they come, in no particular order...

Fig. 1, A Zombie.  

He was cool.  He followed people around the lobby until they noticed he was behind them.  The Con-goers would smile and laugh.  The insurance salesmen from Duluth stood there wide-eyed, which is why the only people who will survive the coming zombie apocalypse are are science fiction and fantasy fans.  We know better than to stand s;till when the zombie closes in.

Kids and R2

There were a lot of kids at this Con.  Normally, I'm not all that enthused when I see a nunch of kids areound, but these kids weren't the yelling-shrieking-running-amuck sort.  They were well behaved and having fun, and R2 was a big draw.  I talked to the guy running R2; it took him three full years to build the little droid.  And believe me, it was movie-quality.  R2 moved, reacted, had all the right lights and sounds.  Heck, I doubt anything actually used in the movies was half as cool.

Steampunk Cowboy

Okay, you all know I've made some Steampunk stuff myself.  But sheesh.  These guys are artists.  Look at that gun.  It's [powered and lighted.  The vacuum tubes glow.  All made by hand, just because it's cool.

The Power Pack

Above is the backpack for the guns.  It lights up too.  The awesome generated by this piece cannot be measured by the instruments of Man.  And this wasn't the only piece of hand-made art roaming the halls -- no, it's just one I managed to get a picture of.  There are some insanely talented people out there.  

Ghostbusters!

Who you gonna call?  Well, if you're me, you'd call Room Service for another pizza, but these guys are handy if you've got haunts.  All their gear was movie-quality or better.  All handmade.  I wanted so bad to steal the PKE Meter, but they kept a sharp eye out for potential thieves, darn their hides.

Fig. 3B, Serious Business

Of course it wasn't all Steampunk and robots.  Above are the authors who presented the Different Flavors of Fantasy panel -- Stephen Zimmer, Jeannie Holmes, Ruth Souther, and Violette Reid.  I was hiding in a crawlspace to the right of the table.

You Really Need a Caption Here?

Above is Wonder Woman, and why not?   Pssst -- she told me Supergirl dyes her hair...

Storm Troopers.

No SF/F Con is complete without the diligent presence of the hard-working minions of the evil Galactic Empire.  And we had quite a few Storm Troopers, all arrayed in brilliant white.  They help out with crowd control at the Masquerade, and there's nothing more fun that being told to 'Move along' by a Storm Trooper's crackly little helmet radio.  

Darth Vader Searches for the Men's Room

I times are tough for the Empire too, because Darth was poking around without a single minion.  I saw him slip into a bathroom.  I'm not sure he heard me say 'Look out, it's a trap!'  but maybe that's for the best.

Finally, there's this guy.  No, that's not a photo from the Con.  We ran into him in a Chevron gas station just off I-240 in Memphis.  Lucky for us, he was almost immediately brought down by stray small-arms fire from a  club across the street.  Stay away from the airport frontage roads, kids!  

I had a blast at the Con.  The people are fantastic, the programs and panels are worth their weight in Unobtanium, and here's a big huge thank you to all the people who worked hard to make MidSouthCon 29 another complete and total success!

And thanks again to Beth!

Live From MidSouthCon 29!

I'm surrounded by Storm Troopers and Hogwarts staff and even a few Ghostbusters.  So I'm either hallucinating (again) or I'm at the Con.

It's been a blast.  I've managed to meet Laura J. Underwood and Angelia Sparrow, and a few others. I sat in on a humor in horror panel and listened to the adventures of some real-life ghost hunters. We've got a bid in on a brilliant piece of artwork down the Artist's Room.  Tonight is the Darrell Awards ceremony.

It's busy but it's fun.  Here are a couple of pictures, just to give you an idea of who's wandering the halls:

Guest of Frank Tuttle (lol) strikes a pose

Small Con-goers meet a fully animated R2

Who will you, in fact, call?

Will post more later, have to get to a panel now...

More Con Ramblings -- WITH EVIL!

Well, I've packed up my business cards, my zoot suit, my spare eyeballs, and my extra skin in case the skin I'm wearing starts turning green early.  So I'm as ready for MidSouthCon as I can possibly be.

As promised, I'll be blogging about the Con, and posting pictures.  If I spot you at the Con with your Kindle you'll be immortalized in medium-resolution pixel fame on my blog, right above a snappy caption.  Show me one of my books on your Kindle, and I'll bump you up to a hi-res image and shower you with praise and as many of those little packages of crackers restaurants put on tables as I have in my pockets at the time.

Yeah, baby, that's how I roll.

I'm really looking forward to the Art Show, which I think I neglected to mention before.  There will be an entire room devoted to SF and fantasy artists and their works, and I saw some amazing items there last year.  Sadly, security in the room was competent, and I didn't manage to leave with any art, but this year I'm bringing money, just in case.

And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't notice people in costumes.

Do I wear a costume?  No.  Mainly because my usual workaday appearance is cartoonish enough.  I'm a middle-aged white dude with greying hair and what is kindly referred to among smaller folk as 'a few extra pounds.'  Sticking orange horns on my head or wrapping myself in a cape isn't going to fool even the most myoptic of observers that I'm anything but a bookish IT guy who refuses to act his age.

I do like the costumes, though.  It adds to the fun, looking up and realizing you're standing between a towering Klingon complete with filed incisors and a pair of slave Princess Leias.  And while some of the costumes are last-minute affairs worn just for grins, quite a few people devote considerable time and effort to their rigs.  Who doesn't enjoy a free art show?

The news people will drift around, of course, spend a few minutes laughing up their sleeves at us, get a brief clip of Storm Troopers mugging for the camera.  And in most cases media coverage doesn't go any deeper than that; after all, they're just looking for a 25-second short to stick between News and Sports.

But there's a lot going on, behind the elves and the aliens.  An industry  is rewarding its fans for their support, and giving the writers and the artists and the editors and the publishers a peek behind the curtain.

It's great fun.  Hope to see you there!

MidSouthCon 29

Science fiction and fantasy fans are a unique breed.  We have a subculture all our own.  And like any subculture worth its weight in fluff news stories and the occasional police report, we have our culture-specific gatherings -- in our case, cons.

'Con' is short for 'convention.'  There are numerous science fiction and fantasy cons scheduled for many times and places all across the world, but when I say 'the con' I mean MidSouthCon.  MidsouthCon is nearly 30 years old, and is held in Memphis, Tennessee, former home of Elvis.  This year the Con is at the Hilton, which has yet to be renamed the Frank Tuttle Hilton.  I suppose they're waiting for the opening ceremony at the Con for that.

Click the con link above if you're curious.  I went last year, and had a blast, so naturally I'm heading back this year too.

Part of my reason for going is business.  I like to see what other writers are doing, hear publishers talk about the industry, listen to authors talk about publishers.  There are panels about everything from aardvarks in fantasy to zombies in romance, and you'd be surprised who leads the panels sometimes.

I've also been nominated for the Darrell Award, and as a self-aggrandizing hog for attention, there's absolutely no way I'd miss being there in case my name is called.

I'm going to take my camera and blog all about it, so be on the lookout for that.  And if any of you are planning to make MidSouthCon 29 in Memphis this year, please, look me up!  I can usually be found clinging to the pant-leg of a hapless publisher or being escorted to the lobby by Security.  In the case of the latter, please wait until the tasing wears off before initiating a conversation.

Those things sting no matter how many times you've endured them.

Hate-Filled Spew

I'm messing with you.

I can see how many times each of my blog entries is read, you see.  And I've noticed a distinct correlation between inflammatory titles and the number of hits.  So I decided to test my observations with this blog entry.

Thank you for your kind participation.

Of course, if I wanted to actually write a hate-filled spew, I'd find no shortage of material or targets.  Heck, as long as professional idiot Glen Beck has a TV show, the field is bursting with ripe, tender targets.

And I do owe you something for clicking.  Hmm.  Very well, gentle reader.

There.  A quick Google session, and I found that just yesterday Beck was ranting about how rival network MSNBC was a tool o' Satan.  Which is funny, because I'm pretty sure the Prince of Darkness could pull in better ratings.  The average re-run of a three year old episode of 'SpongeBob SquarePants' scores more viewers than MSNBC's highest rated show, and if you're the singular embodiment of all the evil in the universe, you've simply got to do better than that.

Beck then went on with some bizarre rant about end times prophecies and famine.  Well, Beck should take a close look at his best buddy Rush Limbaugh, and that should pretty much alay any fears about famine, because Limbaugh is still finding the caloric equivalent of an entire Denny's each and every day without any apparent difficulty.  Let's not start worrying until Rush loses a couple of chins, mkay, Glen?

Honestly, I wondered how Beck and Limbaugh stay on the air.  Then I went to Wal-Mart and had a look around at the mouth-breathing troglodytes waddling through the aisles and it all made perfect sense.  Again.

Does that satisfy the minimum requirements for a hate-filled spew?  Please say it does.  Don't make me drag Michael Vick into this.  That makes my right eye twitch.

Enough.  I've got work to do, and by work to do, I mean a new NCIS to watch.

Peace out, fellow babies.

Now for the Nook!

I have a Kindle e-book reader.  I love it, too -- Amazon sells more e-books than I'll ever be able to read, and I can grab anything I want with a couple of clicks and be reading it in minutes.

But the Kindle isn't the only game in town.  Barnes and Noble has the Nook, and now Barnes and Noble has e-books for the Nook written by none other than me.

So if you've got a Nook and the subliminal mind-control programming built into this blog post is working, you're now feeling a powerful urge to head on over to Barnes and Noble and load up your Nook with my books.  

Helpful guy that I am, the links to Nook e-books are below.  Don't fight it.  Browse...buy....obey....

The Banshee's Walk -- Markhat's latest case starts with a possible land-grab, but ends with his discovery of a banshee.  Does the banshee's cry sound Markhat's doom?

The Cadaver Client -- Rannit's most skilled finder is hired by a dead man to locate the wife he left behind.  Or so Markhat is told -- but do even the dead tell lies?

Hold the Dark -- When Markhat's world falls apart, he's left with nothing but a burning desire for vengeance, even if it costs him his soul.

The Mister Trophy -- Will a rich man's trophy room re-ignite the War that Markhat still struggles to forget?

Dead Man's Rain -- A dead husband.  A rich widow.  Scheming heirs.  And one very haunted mansion -- all brought together for one dark and stormy night...

Of course, all these titles are also available from Amazon, for the Kindle (just click on the cover pictures to the right).

Want a format other than Nook or Kindle?

No problem.  Head on over to Samhain Publishing.  They've got my titles in every format imaginable, including plain HTML and pdf.

What I'm Reading Now: Pale Demon

Nope.  No spoilers here, because I'm only a quarter of the way through the book.  So don't feel like you need to hit the back button if you're a Kim Harrison fan who hasn't read Pale Demon.

If you're a fantasy reader who isn't already a Kim Harrison fan, you should be.  She writes a great yarn -- fast-paced, unpredictable, imaginative, and just plain brilliant.  Her Rachel Morgan character is every bit as much fun as Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden.  And from me, that is high praise.

The Rachel Morgan books are the books I thought Laurell K. Hamilton was going to write with her Anita Blake novels.  I stopped reading the Anita Blake books after book three, I think it was -- too much were/vamp romance and angst and not enough, well, anything else.  Anita is in love with this guy, and this guy, blah blah blah.  If I wanted Twilight with an R rating I'd -- well, I have myself beaten to a pulp, that's what I'd do.  Twice.

But Harrison has avoided the bogged-down-in-drama pitfall.  I love the way she takes a simple premise and weaves a whole book around it.

I'm not giving anything away that isn't on the book blurb by saying this much.  Rachel, Jenks, and Trent wind up taking a very unlikely three-day road trip across post-Turn America.  There may or may not be assassins on their heels.  Trent and Rachel may or not be at each others' throats most of the time.

I'm only a quarter of the way through, but man is it good.  Magic is flying.  The tension is palpable.  The stop in St. Louis?

Somebody please make a movie out of this.

Most of the time, when I read a book, I find myself picking it apart, chapter by chapter, word by word.  If it's good, I want to dissect it, see what makes it tick.

I can't do that with Pale Demon.  The pages won't let you not turn them.

I'll probably read it a second time with an eye toward stealing Miss Harrison's pacing tricks.  But for now, I'm just sitting back and enjoying the ride!

The Little Things

Writing is a solitary pursuit.  There is me.  There is the keyboard.  There are dogs, and desks, and chairs.

But mostly there is a lot of silence, some eye-rubbing, some frowning.  All that is interspersed with furious spates of typing, followed by more frowning, stabs at the DELETE key, and then it's back to silence and eye-rubbing.

Rinse and repeat until you hit 100,000 words.  Then start all over with the editing, which looks just like the writing except for the muttering and the scribbling of cryptic notes on a paper notepad beside the keyboard.

My point is that it's easy to forget why, exactly, you're hunched over a keyboard for hours on end.  I get so wrapped up in the process, sometimes, that I forget all about the most important part of the scene, which is of course the reader.  Sneaky of me, wasn't it, to never mention the reader?

Because all this eye-rubbing and typing is nothing -- less than nothing -- if no one ever reads the book.

But people do.  I just got an email, minutes ago, from a reader who just finished the most recent Markhat book, The Banshee's Walk.

This intrepid soul finished Banshee while they sat in a rental car on a hill in Hawaii, waiting for the tsunami to hit the coast.

I'm not a big fan of the water.  The nearest coast is more than 400 miles from me, and that's just the way I like my coasts. Because if I was anywhere near the beach and I heard a rumor of a rumor that a wave more than knee-high was on the way, I'd be hijacking planes and heading for the Himalayas before you can say 'run-on sentence.'

So for me to learn that someone out there chose to read 'The Banshee's Walk' while nature threw a deadly temper tantrum across half the planet, well, I am deeply and profoundly touched.

So thanks for the email, Mo.  I am thrilled that you like the Markhat books, and I'm honored that you or anyone for that matter devotes some of their time to read the things I write.

It makes all the scribbling and the muttering truly worthwhile.

The Ghost of Freddy Jackson

People ask me things all the time.  Mostly it's "Why did you just run over me?" or "Don't you think you've had enough to eat?", but sometimes I'm asked about things that go bump in the night.

No, not that.  Get your minds out of the gutter.  I'm talking matters paranormal here.  Specifically, ghosts.

Do I believe in ghosts?

No.  Or yes.  It's too early to say.  Because what I do believe in is evidence.

And there are solid pieces of evidence which appear to support the supposition that deceased persons do indeed make the infrequent visit to this side of the veil.  I'd like to discuss just one such piece of evidence now, which is a photograph taken in 1919 that may depict the face of one Freddy Jackson, deceased but notably not absent.

Freddy Jackson was a soldier in the British Royal Air Force in World War I.  He served as a mechanic, maintaining combat aircraft aboard the HMS Daedalus.

Freddy didn't die in battle; instead, he had the (rather common) misfortune to walk into a moving airplane propeller.  He died, and was buried, and that should have been the end of his tragic if all too common tale.

But on the day Freddy Jackson was laid to rest, his squadron mates assembled for a group photo.  No one noticed anything out of the ordinary until after the photograph was presented back to the squadron.

They quickly realized that Freddy Jackson's face is there among them, plain and clear.

The photo is below.  Freddy's face has been enlarged; he appears to be peering out from behind one of his fellows.  The men of the squadron were adamant that the face is that of Freddy Jackson, deceased, who was being laid to rest when the photo was taken.

I've found nothing to contradict their assertion.  And remember, this was 1919.  Photoshop was sixty-plus years away.  Photography itself was a cumbersome art, and while fakery was indeed being practiced it was usually obvious and often clumsy.

This image is neither.

Is it the face of a dead man, returned to join his squadron for one last time?

I simply don't know.  But I find it intriguing.  More than intriguing.  It may even be suggestive of a phenomena beyond the realm of traditional science.

What do you think?  Do you have odd photos or ghost stories of your own?  If you do, and you'd like to share them, email me!  I love ghost stories, and I won't breathe a word of it here, if you ask that your experiences be kept quiet.

That's all for today.  The Secret Writing Project is proceeding nicely.  Ask me what that is too, but know that I won't tell!

Glenn Beck, Man of Intellect and Wit!

I don't listen to Glenn Beck or Fox News for much the same reason I don't shove sharp pointy things in my ears -- it hurts, and it serves no good purpose.

Even so, a headline sneaks through sometimes, as happened just now.  "Glenn Beck: Japan Earthquake might be a message from God."

First of all, Glenn needs to check his boundaries, because making ludicrous, asinine statements ascribing mass deaths to a petulant deity is Pat Robertson's territory.  Robertson is probably not happy that Beck beat him to the punch, and he might just decide to get himself a chalkboard and start scribbling nonsense about Masons and the Trilateral Commission on it in a tit-for-tat retaliation that could lead to a <gasp> Chalkboard Showdown of the Paranoid Delusions!.  Okay, that might actually be funny, especially if someone out there made a mashup video out of them going at it laid over a Nine Inch Nails song backtrack.

Seriously, though -- ten thousand people are dead, a nation lies in ruins, and Glenn Beck wants to gloat and make scary noises about divine wrath?

Glenn, I know you're not a big fan of bad ol' Science, but you might want to Google the Interwebs someday for 'Ring of Fire' or 'tectonics' or heck even 'Remedial Geology.'  You'd look less stupid.  And you could certainly stand a reduction in Stupid, pal.

I simply don't understand the popularity of Beck and his porcine running buddies.  Rush Limbaugh?  A huge fat oxy-addict with obvious insecurity issues and the brains of a fruit-bat.  Hannity?  A noxious little wisp of flatulence right out of Limbaugh's massive nether regions.

Why does anyone waste their time listening to these prancing imbeciles blather?

Beck's time at Fox is obviously on the wane.  That alone says something -- when Fox News hints that maybe your grip on reality is slipping, it's got to be because you just showed up in the studio with a live stingray strapped to your head and lit fireworks stuffed up your pants while you swallow live snakes and claim to be Batman.

Even then, I think you could get a pass, if your ratings were good enough.  It certainly hasn't stopped  Bill O'Reilly, who thinks tides are inexplicable, unpredictable supernatural events, and that each and every sunrise is a random chance event.

So why does it bother me that an idiot such as Glenn Beck spouts nonsense about the tragedy in Japan?

First of all, because it's a stupid thing to say, especially when people are hurting.  And people are hurting, Mr. Beck.  But I guess that doesn't mean anything to you since they aren't Fox viewers.

Next, it bugs me because I know that despite the blatant and profound idiocy of the statement, people out there were spitting tobaccy into their Dixie cups and nodding in beady-eyed agreement.  And that bothers me because these people breed.  We have enough stupid people already, thanks. We don't need another million trailer parks full of them.

Finally, it bugs me because Beck is actually getting paid to spew odious crap such as that.  The man gets a check.  Granted, no matter how much the check is for, it isn't enough to buy him brains, but still.  Stupidity should never be rewarded -- certainly not with talk shows or public forums.

In the end, it doesn't matter what Beck said.  Morons say moronic things, and the Japanese are neither helped nor hindered by some wild-eyed crying idiot sputtering into a microphone half a world away.

But still.  Why so many ignorant voices?

Oh.  Fox.

Never mind.

Movie Review: Battle Los Angeles

Will aliens never learn?

By now, you've probably seen the trailer for Battle: Los Angeles.  The trailer looked great -- a sky filled with marauding alien aircraft, strange figures moving stealthily through the smoke of battle, the pound and rattle of heavy artillery and automatic weapons fire.

As a sucker for effects-filled run-and-gun alien smash-em-ups, I awaited the opening of this movie with unseemly glee.  I was there opening night, crossbow loaded and ready to (quietly) dispatch any cell-phone talkers in the theatre, eager to finally see a movie that rivaled Aliens for sheer effects-laden fun.

Battle: Los Angeles did not disappoint.

There's no long windup.  We are briefly introduced to the small Marine unit we'll be following throughout the movie, and then the aliens just drop out of the sky and wreak epic havoc upon the city of angels.

We're also told the same thing is happening across the globe.  Cities are being wiped out as the aliens drop into the seas just off the coast and begin their deadly march inland.  No warning, no demands, no communication of any kind -- they just smash down, stand up, and start the slaughter.

The Marines are ordered to head beyond the defensive line, into the battle zone, to rescue a number of people trapped in a police station.  Go in, get them out, get them back to safety.

Of course, things don't work that way.  But enough said about that.

The action is intense and non-stop.  I mean it.  Non-stop.  These poor slugs don't get a minute of peace.  And the effects are miraculous; short of actually blowing the crap out of a none-too-affluent section of LA, including the freeways, I have no idea how they did this.  The look of this film is amazing.  I swear I was covered in a gritty layer of concrete dust by the time the credits rolled.

Do our brave Marines survive?  Does the obligatory child survivor oif the attack make it?  Do we finally show these upstart aliens how we do things downtown?

See the movie.  You'll have a blast.

That was the good.

Now for the ugly.  There may be spoilers ahead, minor ones, but if you're sensitive to these things please stop reading now and look to your right and click on a book and buy it.  Yes.  That one. Now buy another...


Nearly every alien invasion movie ever made shares some of the same dumb-headed flaws, which I shall enumerate below:

1) The aliens want our water.  Yes.  Our tasty, tasty H2O.  Forget the fact that the cosmos is literally awash in the stuff -- there's even plenty of ice on the Moon, for Pete's sake -- but apparently ours comes from sparkling artesian springs and lizard-faced space bugs just find the stuff irresistible. NOTE TO MOVIE MAKERS -- anybody with a high school chemistry lab can *make* freaking water.  Anybody with a space armada can just fly around and scoop the stuff up.  Fighting for it is just dumb.  But not as dumb as using water for fuel.  ANOTHER NOTE TO MOVIE MAKERS -- The amount of energy (chemical, kinetic, thermal, what have you) available in water is well-known.  You can break the chemical bonds between H and O all you want, but you're not going to power starships or weapons with it.  And even if you could, just grab it from places where heroic Marines won't fight you to the death for it.  Duh.

2) The aliens want our women.  Maybe they don't have any of their own.  Or maybe the entire alien attack fleet is composed of loser aliens who couldn't get dates.  But seriously?  I think maybe this speaks more toward the social lives of the script writers than anything else.  That wasn't a part of Battle: Los Angeles, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

3) The aliens want to eat us.  Again, the critters in Battle: Los Angeles showed no desire to do anything to humans but shoot them in the head.  Which is refreshing, since people don't taste too good and anyway they blew up all the liquor stores, so where would you get enough red wine to go with your meal?  Silly aliens.

Of the items above, only #1 applies, and that's if you count a news report blathering away in the background in a single scene.  I dismissed it, and enjoyed the movie despite it.

Favorite scenes from the movie:

1) The impromptu alien autopsy, conducted by a veterinarian and a seriously disgruntled Marine on a still-living alien.  Cutting up a twitching, chittering space baddie with a k-bar knife, looking for interesting organs to shoot -- that's just good fun.

2) The driving-an-armored-vehicle through a mob of surprised aliens scene.  Think octogenarian at a street market, but with .50 caliber guns blazing.  Hey, aliens!  What weighs six tons and just ran over your freakin' head?  This guy!

3) "We already ate breakfast."

So I give Battle: Los Angeles two furiously grinning thumbs-up.  It was loud, it was fast, it was fun.

Un-American Activities -- Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

Pick pretty much any moment from any day, and you'll find a group of highly-paid Congresspeople sitting in a room and wasting their time and our money.

And that's fine.  I long ago reconciled myself to the notion that government is the well-dressed equivalent of a dog's breakfast.  Nothing of note ever gets done, but the messes left behind are always epic.

But there are days such as today, where even my abysmally low expectations are set far too high.

I speak of course of Representative Pete King, and his hearings on the subject of Muslim radicalization within the US.

You'd think these imbeciles would learn something from the asinine antics of their brain-damaged forebears.  Joseph McCarthy, anyone?  Communists hiding behind every shrub, every fountain, every comic book?  Except of course there weren't any.  McCarthy ruined lives and careers but his army of hidden Communists never materialized because they never existed in the first place.

Sigh.  Pete King probably has a brass bust of Joe McCarthy on his mantel.  Or full-length nude photos of McCarthy in his desk.  Because King is determined to not only follow in McCarthy's footsteps, but actually exceed the man's dedication to the ideal of finding monsters hiding in every corner.

This time around, it's not Communists, but....<gasp> Muslims.  Or, as Joe King doubtlessly prefers to pronounce it, moo-slims.  They're radicalized, infers Pete.  Radicalized and ready to throw down some jihad any second now!  Blood and apple pie will run in the streets! Hide the wimmin and grab yer guns, boys, 'cause the mooslims is a' comin!

So what does Pete do?

He drags Muslim Americans onto the Hill, and grills them, ostensibly in the hope that they'll get distracted by the cameras and blurt out their sinister plans to blow up the nearest Dunkin' Donuts before nightfall.

That's what outrages me.  No American citizen -- be they Muslim, Baptist, Hindu, whatever -- owes Pete King or anyone else an 'explanation' of their beliefs or their patriotism.

That's supposed to be one of the central perks of being an American -- that you don't have to explain your beliefs to anyone, least of all a bunch of jackbooted government thugs.

I've worked in a university setting all my life.  I've worked with Muslims.  I've worked with Hindus.  With Buddhists.  I've even worked with members of even more exotic sects, such as Methodists and Presbyterians.

According to Pete King, I should have been blown up years ago.  Or if not blown up, converted to radical Islam.

Oddly enough, neither has happened.

Not even close.

Okay, I have developed a fondness for Indian food.  Maybe that's the sinister gateway to terrorism.  From Chicken Korma to radical Islam, in five easy steps?

Want to know about the people I've worked with, laughed with, talked with, over all these years?

They're just people.  The Muslims wanted to go home and see their kids like everyone else.  The Hindus, ditto.  Aside from differences in lunchtime preferences, and who drank coffee and who didn't, I didn't see any significant variations in behavior.

Just what am I supposed to be afraid of?

These 'hearings' are ridiculous.  Ridiculous and insulting.  And as far as I can tell, the only people engaging in overtly un-American activities are Pete King and his cronies, who are obviously engaged in demonizing Muslims as part of a painfully transparent effort to revive the post-911 paranoia just in time for the 2012 elections.

To my Muslim friends out there, I apologize.  Fat lot of good that does, huh?

I Spy

One of my favorite blog-related activities is checking the 'audience' monitor to see where readers of this blog are from.

This week, we've picked up readers in Iran, India, Singapore, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Spain!  So hello to all you folks, wherever you hail from.

I imagine quite a few of my international readers first starting reading the old blog (may it rest in peace), which was basically a non-stop rant against a certain former presidential Administration and its penchant for instigating pointless military escapades.  I also devoted several hundred pages to describing the overly carnivorous eating habits of former Vice President Dick 'I Crave the Blood of Infants' Cheney, who I still consider one of the most evil men to have ever gutted a live wildebeast for his midmorning snack.

Well, sad to say, I've calmed down a bit.  Not because I'm a huge fan of the current occupant of the White House, but because I've decided it doesn't really matter who's sitting behind that desk.  They aren't the ones running the show.

But for my international readers, I will offer a brief summary of the current state of affairs here in the States.  To wit:

1) American Foreign Policy -- Troops in Iraq?  Check.  Troops in Afghanistan?  Oh yeah.  Billions poured daily into wars without goals or end?  You know it.  Payments to 'allies' such as Pakistan, which are immediately funneled into supplying the very people shooting at us?  Made daily.  The only conclusion I can draw is that American foreign policy is still being drafted by a super-secret combination of Ouija Boards which channel deceased Halliburton executives and are operated by meth-crazed Rhesus monkeys.

2) American Domestic Policy -- This one is easy.  400 -- that's four hundred -- Americans have more wealth than 155 million other Americans combined.  Which makes it easy for the super-rich to buy more than enough congresspeople to keep tax cuts for the rich and the industries they favor firmly in place, while the middle class vanishes like snow in a blast-furnace.  Everything else revolves around this simple axis of wealth.  Coming soon:  You'll either be rich in America, or very very poor.  Welcome to Third World Homeland.

3) The 2012 elections?  Get ready, folks, because this will be the single most stunning parade of sheer idiocy that you've seen since, um, 2008.  Gingrich, Palin, Santorum -- forget the carnival freakshow, because this is going to have it all, and then some.  And, as I said before, the real icing on the cake is the futility of the whole wretched star-studded spectacle.  It doesn't matter who wins.  The 'winner' is just a cardboard cut-out propped up on a stage for the rubes to throw things at.  The real decisions are made quietly, without any fuss, in a cherry-paneled room somewhere over snifters of brandy and five hundred dollar cigars.

See why I basically stopped even mentioning politics?

Anyway, welcome to the blog.  Drop me an email at franktuttle@franktuttle.com and say hello!

MidSouthCon 29 Approacheth!

First, a reminder -- hotel registration for MidSouthCon 29 is open until the 11th at the Con rate.  Eighty-five bucks a night for the Hilton isn't too bad, either.

This will only be my second convention.  I'm really looking forward to it -- it's fun to hang out with with my spiritual kin.  Too, I love the costumes.  And the dealer's room.  And the art show.  And the awards banquet, and the panels, and meeting various luminaries in the field.  It's a good time, and if you've never been to a SF/fantasy convention, MidSouthCon is a great first stop.

By the way, if I spot any Kindlers at the Con, I'm going to ask to take your picture (with your Kindle) and post it here on my blog.  I'm just curious about how many SF/fantasy fans are also e-book enthusiasts.

In other news, Markhat fans can expect the print version of The Banshee's Walk to hit the stands on June 7 of this year.

That's about it for now.  Time to get back to work!

Lots O Links!

If you hooked me up to a brain activity monitor right this moment, all you'd see are nice flat lines.  I don't know why, but I'm just spent.  There's not a clever thought or catchy phrase anywhere near my noggin now.

But a lack of anything significant to say has never left me silent before, and I'll be darned if I'll start now.

So -- links!

Passing the Narrows.  This is one of mine.  If you've got a Kindle e-reader or you have the Kindle app on your phone or other device, you can grab this for less than a buck.  It's a quick read, about a crew of desperate Confederate war vets taking their steamboat down a haunted stretch of the Yazoo River.  It first appeared in Weird Tales a few years back, and it's always been one of my favorites.  Guess who the character Swain is based on!

World War Z.  Yeah, this is zombie fiction -- but hang on a minute.  That's just the backdrop.  The book is nothing short of brilliant, in both its depiction of a world mauled nearly to death and the tiny acts of heroism and sacrifice that always go largely unnoticed in any massive catastrophe.  Read it, and I promise you'll never hear wind in the trees at night quite then same way ever again.

Living Ghosts.  This is music; specifically, the Amazon MP3 album by band Absinthe Junk.  If you want the iTunes version, well, search iTunes for Absinthe Junk -- if there's a way to link to an album in the iTunes store it's unknown to me.  But it's worth the effort!  Junk is sort of the angry love child of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.

The Black Company.  This is an old-fashioned paper book.  It's fantasy, but unlike any fantasy you're likely to have read before.  Gritty, unflinching, brutally honest -- this is war in the trenches.  Not for the faint of heart.

Fark.  We're painfully aware that the world is a chaotic, dangerous place ruled only by the laws of Whim and Caprice.  Fark is a weird news website that collects the freakish best and random worst of Planet Earth and lays it all out in a neat column for your perusal.  With snarky one-line descriptions, and a weekly Friday game of 'Match the Mugshots With the Crimes.'  If you don't Fark, you should...

Regretsy.  You've probably never heard of a website called 'Etsy.'  I hadn't.  Etsy dot com is a marketplace for hand-made items of all sorts.  Think about that for a moment.  Yeah.  Exactly.  Etsy may have started out as a showplace for folk art, but wide swaths of it quickly devolved into a hilarious free-for-all of hilariously mis-shapen pieces of 'found art' which appear to have not been crafted by hand but rather with foot.  I know, I know, it's not nice to mock the clumsy and the inept, but man is it fun.


Enjoy!