New Terry Bisson book.

TVA Baby, it's a collection of short stories.  I'd never read much of his stuff beyond They're Made Out of Meat (which is in every nook and cranny of the net, but now you have the 'official' link to the story, go read it).  He always struck me as a faster-witted, funnier version of Phillip K. Dick.  And as it turns out, that was a fair assessment in more ways than one: compare Fire on the Mountain (John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry is successful and alternate history ensues) to Dick's The Man in the High Castle (Allies lose WWII; again, alternate history ensues).  Anyway, a couple of stories into TVA Baby I'm having a great time.


Dream Team: Quentin Tarantino makes a rapid-fire vignette movie from several Bisson short-short stories.  I can just hear the dialog in They're Made Out of Meat being bounced between Jackson and Travolta.  (Jackson speaks first.  I double-dog dare you to read the story now, with those two voices stuck in your head.)

A bad week for stars.

James "Gunsmoke" Arness
Ryan "Jackass" Dunn
Clarence "E Street" Clemons (click the link & watch the video)
All dead, and it's only Monday.
Glad I ain't famous.

The A/C compressor for my car'd better be in this week.

Or else.
It's 10:30 this morning and 91 degrees in the shade already.  And it's only June.

On this Father's Day...

One of the usual suspects passed a copy of this book around down at the Mockingbird a week or so ago.  Now it's on YouTube, read by Samuel L. Jackson: oh hell, I won't give away the punchline, just click the link.

Beautiful.

More pictures at discovery.com

Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

Some of my family over in Florida occasionally ask "so why do you get the big storms in Mississippi, and why don't we get them quite so much here?"  Well, I'll tell you:

See that hot stripe that starts at the western tip of Cuba and ends, oh, I don't know, about a mile from my front door?  See that nice buffer of relatively cooler water sitting like a protective bubble all around Cape San Blas?  Well, that's pretty much the whole answer.
Season starts Wednesday.  Meh, the insurance is paid and the plans are laid.  Gonna go put on some Buffett and get ready for a bike ride along the beach.

Buncha more FL pics

All from the bike, here're the picks of the pics.  I'll leave'em small, but you can click to get the big versions.
Oyster boats in St. George Sound:

From the top of the SGI bridge:

More oyster boats off the bridge:

The SGI light:

Carabelle, seen from the East End:

Dog Island, across East Pass.  Check out the batch of baitfish roughing up the water on the left!

'till next time, happy (bike) trails.