Bite Me

Forget the Twilight series, everyone should read Christopher Moore's vampire trilogy. I finally finished up with "Bite Me" (309 pages). From Goodreads:

"The city of San Francisco is being stalked by a huge shaved vampyre cat named Chet, and only I, Abby Normal, emergency backup mistress of the Greater Bay Area night, and my manga-haired love monkey, Foo Dog, stand between the ravenous monster and a bloody massacre of the general public.

Whoa. And this is a love story? Yup. 'Cept there's no whining. See, while some lovers were born to run, Jody and Tommy were born to bite. Well, reborn, that is, now that they're vampires. Good thing theirs is an undying love, since their Goth Girl Friday, Abby Normal, imprisoned them in a bronze statue.

Abby wants to be a bloodsucking fiend, too, but right now she's really busy with other stuff, like breaking in a pair of red vinyl thigh-high Skankenstein(R) platform boots and wrangling her Ph.D.-candidate boyfriend, Steve (the love monkey). And then there's that vampire cat Chet, who's getting bigger and smarter--and thirstier--by the minute. Abby thought she and Steve could handle the kitty cat on their own, 'mais non' . . .

Before you can say 'OMG WTF?' Tommy and Jody are sprung from captivity, and join forces with Abby, Steve, the frozen-turkey-bowling Safeway crew, the Emperor of San Francisco and his trusty dogs Lazarus and Bummer, Abby's gay Goth friend Jared, and SF's finest Cavuto and Rivera to hunt big cat and save the city. And that's when the fun really begins."

Another fun novel by Moore, a writer that always makes me chuckle with his insane situations and goofy characters. It's been a while since I read "Bloodsucking Fiends" and "You Suck" but fortunately the first chapter of "Bite Me" provides a quick recap of all the events leading up to what I assume is the last book in his tale of vampires run amok in San Francisco. I couldn't resist the purchase at Barnes and Snowballs when I found the book on the bargain rack.

Recommended for fans of Moore's work as well as for those who like to laugh, a lot, while reading. I always finish one of his novels with a smile on my face, a very good thing.

The Oklahoma Taliban Strikes Again

In this case the Oklahoma Senate (again!) by passing the "Personhood Act."

"Oklahoma lawmakers edged closer toward trying to outlaw abortion on Wednesday by approving 'personhood' legislation that gives individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception.

The Republican-controlled state Senate voted 34-8 to pass the 'Personhood Act' which defines the word person under state law to include unborn children from the moment of conception.

The measure now goes to the state House where pro-life Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than a 2-1 margin."

Link.

I can understand this kind of law passing the Oklahoma Senate, it is full of a bunch of right-wing zealots after all! What I can't understand is why there isn't a provisions for rape or incest victims. Basically if you're the victim of either of these lovely scenarios you're fucked, literally and figuratively.

What's really going to happen shortly is that the Oklahoma House will also pass the measure, our idiot Governor will sign it into law, and it will get struck down by the courts. This seems to happen a lot with our state laws...

You gotta love a legislative body that is more concerned with abortion, an issue I thought was settled 39 years ago, than current real-world issues. Where are the jobs and economic development? How do we handle the budget shortfall again this year? What are we going to do about a capital building that's literally crumbling at the foundation?

Up next for the law makers of the great state of Oklahoma: raising the tobacco buying age to 21!! I've said it before, we need serious people to fix our serious state and local problems...

Worth Dying For

Once again I go back to another Lee Child novel, my third of the year. I've been trying to find "Front Porch Profit" in Oklahoma City to no avail (sorry Amy). "Worth Dying For" (513 pages) was a decent effort but my heart just wasn't in this one. From Goodreads:

"There’s deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved case of a missing child, already decades-old, that Reacher can’t let go.

The Duncans want Reacher gone—and it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide. They’re awaiting a secret shipment that’s already late—and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they’re just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world.

For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to keep on going, to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that’s bearing down on him.

For Reacher, that was also impossible"

I was eager to read "Worth Dying For" after the conclusion of "61 Hours." Unfortunately the events in "61 Hours" are hardly covered in the newer novel. Bummer. Oh well, then I thought I'd just settle down to another great yarn by Lee Child featuring his Jack Reacher character. While the book was well written and had a fairly unique plot twist toward the end, I still struggled with the story. I just wasn't in to it at all. I can't quite pin it down. Maybe the location? Nebraska corn country isn't a very sexy local. Like the location the story was just bland overall.

Recommended for fans of the "Reacher" novels by Child. Having said that, it's definitely one of my least favorite stories written by the author. Oddly enough the collective reviews on Goodreads were some of the highest for a Lee Child novel. Go figure.

Tattoo Within a Tattoo

Awesome! Now why can't I think of something cool like that?

Link.

Life Begins at Ejaculation

"Democratic Oklahoma state Senator Constance Johnson has proposed a bill that would make it illegal for a man to ejaculate anywhere except into a woman’s sexual organs, giving an even more extreme twist to the current so-called 'personhood' laws cropping up across conservative states."

Senator Johnson is now officially my favorite Oklahoma lawmaker!

Link.

It's about time someone took a stand against these bumbling idiots in the Oklahoma legislature.

Where's the economic growth? Does anyone over on Lincoln Blvd. give a fuck? Conservatives (Republicans) control everything in Oklahoma, and I mean everything! Instead of trying to do something about jobs and the economy we're treated with anti-abortion laws, fetal free food laws, eliminating income taxes (in spite of the budget shortfalls every year!), allowing lawmakers to carry guns at the House and Senate, and allowing administrators to have fire arms at schools! I'm not shitty about any of these proposals.

Makes me want to puke.

Under the Dome

I'm not a big reader of Stephen King these day, probably more common with people who grew up on his books and found his later works very lacking. In spite of this sentiment I picked up "Under the Dome" (1074 pages) last weekend, not being able to resist the six dollar price tag. From Goodreads:

"On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as 'the dome' comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out."

I liked "Under the Dome" quite a bit even though I've had a falling out of sorts with King over the last couple of decades. I found the premise of the mysterious dome falling over Chester's Mill to be extremely interesting with a myriad of storytelling possibilities. For the most part King delivers. Not only do the citizens of the small community have to deal with the environmental and ecological impact of the dome, they also have to try to survive the psychological impact as well. As each day passes being cut-off from the rest of the world we catch a glimpse of how otherwise ordinary citizens degrade through the stress of power outages, food shortages, and power grabs. The story runs at a break-neck speed in spite of its volume. I plowed through the over one thousand pages in four days.

The couple of nits I would pick with the novel is most of the characters and the ending. While King usually writes interesting characters in his novels he also usually suffers from stereotyping said characters. I won't go into too much detail but every stereotype from small town America is well represented in this book. As for the ending, usually my biggest gripe with King novels, it seemed a little forced and a little anti-climatic. It certainly didn't distract from the story too much but it just left me feeling: "oh well, that's it?".

Recommended for horror, science fiction, and thriller fans, i.e. Stephen King fans. A massive narrative on an epic scale similar to "The Stand" with literally hundreds of characters and situations.

One final note. I really got a kick out of the mention of Lee Child's famous character Jack Reacher a couple of times in this book. Nifty.

More on Fetus Free Food

Things are heating up with the fetus food debate in Oklahoma. I found a letter to the editor in the Oklahoma Gazette that takes an awesome swipe at Senator Ralph Shortey's proposed bill in the Oklahoma legislature. Sadly this may not be the worst bill he's proposed this year, but more on that later...

Link.

"New legislation for consideration by the Oklahoma legislative body includes a bill by Sen. Ralph Shortey stating roughly that no person or entity shall sell food containing aborted fetuses as an ingredient.

I had no idea! Aborted fetuses are being served to Oklahomans and all you are going to do about it, Mr. Shortey, is write a bill? As a concerned citizen, I call on the offices of Gov. Mary Fallin and Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb to immediately shut down all restaurants and grocery stores hawking food items containing aborted fetuses.

In addition, I expect the state of Oklahoma to launch a full-scale investigation into the matter, as well as a major public-service campaign to alert all Oklahoma citizens as to the specific names of each and every food item and their manufacturer so we know whether we are eating human fetuses in Oklahoma!

It seems to me, now that the Republicans have alerted us to this horror, calmly continuing to allow our people to eat abortions is a grave act of treason against our people.

Or maybe the people of this state should quit voting for and publicly supporting these people who continue to make an embarrassing mockery of us and are being fully allowed, by both parties, to promote a ridiculous caricature of who we are as Oklahomans."

The Gazette is the best paper in the state despite the fact that it's a weekly, free publication.

Best of Facespace January 2012

"Did everyone hear the Stanford place kicker tried to kill himself after the Fiesta Bowl? He failed when he was unable to kick the chair out from underneath himself!"

"Thank goodness I know who Todd Palin's voting for! Now if only Kim Kardashian would weigh-in I might be able to make up my mind!"

"Any of my friends or family who might be considering voting for one of these jack holes: do me, yourself, and Charles Darwin a favor and shoot yourself in the face..."

"Did everyone hear that the LSU football team hasn't made it back to Baton Rouge yet? Someone painted a 50 yard line across the highway!"

"So wait, the Neverending Story was sang by a guy??"

"Perry's out of the race?? Who else is going to send troops back to Iraq and get rid of those three departments in the federal government? You know the ones, um, yeah well those three bad ones..."

"I love all the Republican candidates left: Grumpy, Dopey, Richie, and Churchie."

"If the government would lower the capital gains tax rate to zero percent it would encourage so much economic growth in this country that we'd finally be able to put a colony on the moon!!"