When in the Course of human events it become necessary for one people to celebrate a Pumpkin Festival, it behooves them to celebrate like there is no tomorrow. Amen!
The proper way to start a Pumpkin Festival is in the food alley. While most people go this later, we always go there first. It’s not crowded and there are no lines. One year I had to forego the whole food experience because the lines were so long. I didn’t make that mistake again.
I tried some chicken parm sliders, but they were so bad that I threw them out after eating just one. Thankfully, Old Reliable, ie, french fries, came through in a pinch. It is almost impossible to ruin french fries and the vendor selling these certainly didn’t. They were hot and salty. Perfect!
Once you are done eating, then it’s time to make the rounds. Lots of vendors show up, from artsy-fartsy crappola (Mrs B buys a flower head dress with flashing lights every year) to the local dojo-master who breaks boards to obnoxiously loud amateur bands. It’s all fantastic! And sometimes you see things like the above picture that make even the obnoxious bands worth hazarding.
Then it is time to park your backside on a bench and watch the people ebb and flow under the glowing orange moon. But wait, that’s no moon! (say it in your best Admiral Ackbar voice).
No, it’s a PFO!!!!! (Pumpkin Flying Object) Run for your lives before the little orange men probulate you. What’s that, it’s just a pumpkin balloon with the name of the biggest realty company in the town? Oh Willard, say it ain’t so!
Then comes the part we all look forward to every year. A firetruck pulls up to town hall and fully extends its ladder to the screams and ululations of the crowd.
Then the Citizen of the Year runs around the oval with a police escort, waving a pumpkin torch. They ascend the brightly lit ladder, stopping every couple of steps to egg the crowd on to longer and louder shows of town spirit, ie, screaming at the top of one’s lungs as long as possible.
Finally, the giant pumpkin is lit and all’s right with the world.
What a grand time. Even this year, when it rained buckets earlier and everything was wet and it was threatening rain all evening, we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Another great success in the Social Life of Mr and Mrs Bookstooge.
Colonel Brandon alone, of all the party, heard her without being in raptures. He paid her only the compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless want of taste. His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment. She was perfectly disposed to make every allowance for the colonel’s advanced state of life which humanity required.
~Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 7
This quote is from Marianne Dashwood’s viewpoint, from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. She is 17. It made me laugh so hard because “Ancient” Colonel Brandon is 10 years my junior. Oh, I love Austen’s writing almost as much as I do Dickens’.
ps, I am posting this because, A: I Have Words in need of getting loose B: The Pumpkin Festival might get rained out tonight AND tomorrow and thus I’ll have nothing to post about it tomorrow. Thus this post is my “Blog Insurance”.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Mutineer Series: Empire Rising #7 Author: David Holmes Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 389 Words: 151K
I enjoyed this even though it wasn’t the transition of power from Awesome-Admiral Happypants to Ensign Mighty Niece like I thought. Das Admiral is front and center and takes a mighty hit from the bad politicians. He’s hurt, he’s down but he’s not done, not by a long shot! There’s dastardly politicians still to kill. There’s dastardly Really Bad Aliens to kill! There’s thrills and chills as new good aliens pop out of the woodwork like weevils from a biscuit!
Das Space Battleos gets biggemized, to the point where thousands of missiles get fired but thankfully we don’t have to follow every single one to their destruction. We do still get “then X missiles made it through and exploded and destroyed/damaged X ships”. So if that’s your space jam, bring your own toast.
The Bad Politicians left a bad taste in my mouth. Just like they should. But I still didn’t enjoy that aspect of the story, even though it was very necessary. Going number two is ALSO necessary but it doesn’t mean I have to like it, or like hearing other people talk/write about it.
But don’t worry, this series is Number One in my books!
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge.blog
Awesome-Admiral Happypants (because there are lots of admirals but only the most Admiral’y of them all gets to be in charge with that title) saves humanity from a bunch of bad aliens, finds even more good aliens, and finds the Really Bad Aliens.
Politics gets involved, Awesome-Admiral is court-martialed by jealous incompetent and totally stupid Politicians and the Powers That Be blow off the new good aliens and pretend that the RBA’s don’t exist.
Awesome-Admiral doesn’t take it lying down and goes to his wife’s space system to start preparing humanity, along with his niece, Ensign Mighty Niece. Of course, she’s some sort of lowly officer now, but she’s going to stay Ensign Mighty Niece from hereon out in my books!
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales Series: ———- Author: Edwin Tubb Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Horror Anthology Pages: 148 Words: 59K
I was talking with somebody, at some time (I think it was Snapdragon Alcove) and she asked if I’d ever read anything by E.C Tubb. I hadn’t, so I decided to rectify that situation with this standalone collection of short stories by him.
Tubb was quite interested in the supernatural and more specifically, the occultic supernatural. But he was also just fine writing about messed up humanity.
One of the stories is about an older man who has had a stroke. He is convinced his wife has been taken over by an alien and in the end kills her. Only the reader knows everything the narrator is seeing and thinking has been corrupted by the stroke he had. That was the non-occultic kind of scary.
Then you have a story about a guy who robs a cultic temple and takes the jewel from the idol’s forehead. It is a snakegod and he convinces a friend to help him get back to Britain. On the ship ride back, he is mysteriously crushed to death in a locked cabin. The friend returns the jewel and becomes an adherent of the snake god cult.
Tubb is better known (or so I gather) for a science fiction series called Dumarest. I don’t know a thing about it, but after this collection, I’m going to track down a couple and see how they compare. While I wasn’t particularly wowed by this collection, it kept my interest and made me want to check out more by Tubb.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Dead Skip Series: The DKA Files #1 Author: Joe Gores Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 167 Words: 55K
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. This series (DKA stands for Dan Kearney Associates) is about a business that tracks down and repossesses cars that have been stolen or not paid up on.
Unfortunately, Joe Gores, the author, seems intent on dwelling on the seamy side of such a business and everyone under questioning is some sort of filthy wretch. Every woman’s bosom comes under scrutiny from at least one of the men in the agency and apparently all anyone can think about, man or woman, is how they’re going to get laid next.
Add in the racism (EVERYBODY in this story is a racist, from the black woman to the mexican car owner to the white policeman) and the language used and I was done by the time the story was done. I realize there is a point where you are describing “events on the ground”, but it is beyond unnecessary to write out a whole paragraph using every racial slur I’ve heard to date (given, that’s not that many, but it’s enough). All I could think of was “why was this included?”
The story itself was intriguing. DKA is chasing down a missing car and in the process uncover an embezzling scheme and murder. It was great. But Gores just couldn’t help but dirty things up. As such, I won’t be tracking down any more stories by him.
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
In the first book of Joe Gores’s razor-sharp Daniel Kearny Associates series, a DKA investigator clings to life after a devastating car crash. The police are ready to write it off as a drunk driving incident, but the DKA team knows it was an attempted homicide. Now they have seventy-two hours to search the backstreets of San Francisco and find the truth about the “accident” from a stripper, an embezzler, an ex-con, and other unsavory characters
Taking the couple of days off to celebrate our 15th in the middle of the month really helped both of us. Took the stress away for 3 days and allowed us to catch our breathe before diving back into life.
I am in the middle of negotiating so I can keep putting up artwork once a month. If I can pull that off, that will give me the outlet for telling little micro-fictions with each picture continuing the mythology of Bookstooge, the Emperor in Shadow. I have fun making stuff up like that, mainly because I just let my ego go completely out of control 🙂
Started playing some Magic with Spalanz over the net, like I had done with Dave earlier this year. Considering they are both bigger Warhammer 40K fans than I am, it seems only right we’re playing some WH40K Commander. Markus played his favorite little Necrons and then experimented with the Tyranids while I tried to pilot the Emperor Botherer’s deck. I had a great time.
My reading for September was the at the lowest level since January. As can be told by all the numbers in the Raw Data section. Considering that allowed me some breathing room in regards to writing, I was perfectly ok with that. Especially since I just broke the 200 barrier this month. The rest of the year is just going to be coasting.
The window replacement stuff is done! That was quite the process and I am very glad it is over. Plus, pouring out all the money on it is now done too, so our bank account can begin to recover.
On a slightly sadder note. I really miss Meatbag Intern. I’m currently working with a guy who’s been with our company for about 2 years. He’s had no land survey experience before so I take that into account. BUT. He shows very little initiative, can’t seem to handle more than one instruction at a time, ignores what I tell him half the time and even when I walk him through something, doesn’t understand the underlying principle and thus can’t extrapolate what I’m aiming for. When I tell him to do A and B, he doesn’t think ahead and realize that C is the next step. He’s not incompetent, he’s just not as good as Meatbag. I soldier bravely on though. Us outdoorsy manly men do that kind of thing you know.
Going to be easing up on the reading even more, hence my reviewing numbers will down, so I am hoping to keep a couple of days each week clear. Not for anything, but because I need to make sure I don’t burn my little writing self out. October of last year was when I worded myself out and had to take the month off from reviewing. You all did a great job of commenting on the lists that I read, but I don’t want to repeat that. So I’m deliberating easing up now.
A Pumpkin Festival is coming up, so we’ll be attending that and I plan on writing about it. IF it isn’t rained out (a distinct possibility, every year, sigh)
Groo is the only visual medium I plan on consuming in October. I’m letting manga go, I’m letting Asterix go and I’m letting Bone go, at least until New Years. I’m almost completely burnt out on the visual so I need to stop now.
Going to be watching and reviewing the Wolverine trilogy for my X-Franchise movie watching. Origins, The Wolverine and Logan. I’ve watched, and enjoyed, Origins before, so at least that will be good. We’ll see about the others.
They filled their pockets and then their hats. Then a furious gardener chased them with a rake. They ran. Cat was very happy as he carried his full, knobby hat home. Mrs. Sharp loved apples. He just hoped she would not reward him by making gingerbread men. As a rule, gingerbread men were fun. They leaped up off the plate and ran when you tried to eat them, so that when you finally caught them you felt quite justified in eating them. It was a fair fight, and some got away. But Mrs. Sharp’s gingerbread men never did that. They simply lay, feebly waving their arms, and Cat never had the heart to eat them.
~Chapter Two
Hahahahaahaha! Man, that’s some good comic writing right there 😀
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Stalking the Unicorn Series: John Justin Mallory #1 Author: Mike Resnick Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 208 Words: 78K
About 6 years ago, I read the compilation of short stories about John Justin Mallory entitled “Stalking the Zombie”. It did not impress me and in the comments I even stated I wouldn’t be searching out the previous books. Well, there’s egg on my face now.
This is about a private investigator that goes into a “supernatural” side of New York City and is stuck there and has to solve cases. In this, somebody stole a unicorn and he’s been hired to find it. Only a demon is after it, his client is lying to him and the unicorn has actually been dead for quite some time.
It reminded me a good bit of the “Garrett, PI” books by Glen Cook. Not as good but still decent. JJ, as I shall refer to John Justin Mallory from here on out, likes to drink hard liquor and has about a million other Private Investigator cliches to fill him out as a character. He’s not much else besides cliches. Which works for a standalone story but since this is NOT a standalone story, we’ll see. JJ is no Widowmaker though, so I’ll have to wait and see if he gets any actual character development beyond being a boozer. Not expecting it though.
Managing expectations is the key to all of Resnick’s stories. Every time I have “expected” more, I’ve enjoyed less. So turn that brain off and prepare for the literary equivalent of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And you’ll be happy.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia
Mallory, a private investigator from New York, spends New Year’s Eve in his office, with a bottle of whisky, and in a terrible mood. His business partner left for California with Mallory’s wife, having also blackmailed some of their clients. Since the infuriated victims head for the detective’s office, it seems that the night will end up tragically; yet, the plot suddenly takes an unexpected turn as in the room appears a strange creature, an elf called Mürgenstürm.
Mürgenstürm, who comes from an alternative world, is in equally serious trouble. He was obliged to guard a valuable animal, the unicorn called Larkspur. He neglected his duty and the unicorn was stolen. Now, the elf’s life is in danger, so he wants to take advantage of Mallory’s service.
As he has no other way out of trouble the detective decides to follow Mürgenstürm, and to search for the stolen animal. They enter the alternative New York through the gate in the basement of the very building where Mallory has his office.
When the detective examines the scene of the crime, he encounters the eye-witness, a cat-girl Felina, who, despite her catlike personality, will become Mallory’s loyal partner. She reveals that the culprit is a leprechaun, Gillespie, who is working for a perilous and powerful demon, Grundy, that is responsible for spreading evil in both New Yorks. At the same time, the Grundy finds out about Mallory’s investigation and tries to dissuade him from taking further steps.
Nevertheless, Mallory does not abandon the investigation and in search of information about the unicorn visits various places in the alternative New York, such as the Museum of Natural History, full of dead yet regularly reviving animals, and Central Park, occupied by wholesalers offering completely useless goods.
On his way Mallory meets Eohippus, a six-inch tall horse that helps him find the expert on unicorns, a former huntress still craving for adventure, Colonel Winifred Carruthers. Unlike Mürgenstürm, who gradually turns out to be more an accomplice in the crime than the victim, Carruthers and Eohippus are valuable allies. Due to Colonel, Mallory comes into contact with a magician, The Great Mephisto, and finds out the motives for the crime. In the unicorn’s head there is a ruby that would enable the Grundy to move freely between the two worlds and gain more power than he has ever had.
After a long search Mallory reaches Gillespie’s flat on the 13th floor of a cheap hotel only to find out that the leprechaun ran away, the unicorn is already dead, and the gate between the two cities begins to close. In the meantime, Mallory’s partners, Colonel and Eohippus, are caught by Gillespie.
Soon after that the detective receives an invitation to the auction at which the precious ruby is to be sold. The Grundy appears there too, and he seems to have all the cards. Yet, it turns out that Mallory, with the help of Felina, has already found and hidden the jewel, which gives him an advantage over the enemy. Grundy sets Mallory’s friends free and agrees to wait until the detective delivers the ruby.
Mallory, who has no intention of letting the Grundy wreak havoc in both worlds, has the jewel transported to “his” New York just before the passage between the two worlds closes. Then he meets the Grundy only to inform him about it. Since the demon cannot be sure whether Mallory tells the truth he does not dare to kill the detective, but promises to have his revenge in the future.
Mallory is content to stay in the alternative New York, where his work makes more sense. He is determined to continue his struggle against evil having the noble Colonel and of the mysterious Felina at his side.
If you use the Reader, you may have noticed that the “visit” button is no longer visible under the post in the reader. You can’t even click on the title to get to the post, that just takes you to the full post but still in the reader. I have found that you have to click on the ellipses in the upper right of the box and under there is an option to “visit post”.
Of course, it is RIGHT ABOVE the option to “block site”. Can’t see any problems with that setup, can you? Yeah, me neither.
This is one more incremental change that goes against good usage and good design. Hiding options behind other options seems to be how WP is operating these days however and I suspect we’ll be seeing more “simplification” while they cater to whoever they think they are catering to.
While I’m not about to leave WP, or to abandon my Bookstooge.blog address, I am currently looking around at other options to host the site. Not very optimistic though.
