Saturday, December 11, 2010

Saturday splats.

I'm in the Bulletin this morning, recommending a couple of books for Christmas:

"THE HUNGER GAMES"
By Suzanne Collins.

This young adult novel is absolutely addicting. Young people are chosen to fight in survival games, which provides some exciting action, but there are deeper themes at play here, about freedom and independence, cooperation and empathy for others, and it's done with such sympathy you can't help but root for the characters. (First in a trilogy, followed by "CATCHING FIRE"and "MOCKINGJAY.")

'THE WALKING DEAD"
By Robert Kirkman.

There are already 13 graphic novels released in this story, with more to come. Surviving the zombie apocalypse: It's not really so much about zombies, though there are plenty of those, but how people band together and cooperate and try to get along.

--Duncan McGeary, owner of Pegasus Books.

Notice how I slipped in 16 books when asked for two? Heh.

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This is one wet winter.

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Paul was in and saying my blog was way too dark and he wanted something cheerful.

So yesterday, Pegasus Books finally had a big day and it brought us to within 3% of last year's sales.

Sorry, that's the best I can do....

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Bank of America was still stalking us after our last go around.

We sent in the money, got it back, got rebilled, talked to them and insisted they close our account.

I don't have the letter in front of me informing me that the loan was closed, but it was surprisingly snippy, something like:

"We warn you we are closing your account, and don't you dare ever try to use this again, and if you try again there will be dire consequences!"

WTF?

I don't WANT to use your account, I've been trying to close it for months, and you kept wanting to collect fees on it or something.

More to the point, you cut off access to the HELOC a COUPLE OF YEARS AGO!

For which I thank you. Now, one last time and I truly mean it: Leave us Alone.

Freaking banks. Man, if you can't even pay them off, in full, just a clearcut solution....I feel complete sympathy for anyone trying to find a middle ground.

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From Huffington Post:

"Assange's Lawyer Says He's Upbeat, Only Jailhouse Request is for a Computer."

I heard his counterfeiting jailmate was only asking for a printing press.

The dog fighting guy in the cell next door, only wants a pet.

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So a guy in a stolen car innocently passes through Bend with his trusty printer in the backseat, and passes a counterfeit 20.00 bill at a gas station/mart.

Probably been doing it for some time, passing through towns, getting a meal and some gas and on his way....

Little does he know that three young local guys have been all over town passing bad bills just a day or two before, and everyone in Bend is in high alert.

Oops.

4 comments:

H. Bruce Miller said...

"This is one wet winter."

Cheer up, we've only got seven more months to go.

Bend Sux! (TM)

Anonymous said...

Wow, Dunc...did it even cross your mind to link to the article where you recommend the books? Pretty common courtesy, as opposed to copying and pasting text.

H. Bruce Miller said...

Anon: The Bulletin puts its stories behind a paywall -- you can't link to them. Did it even cross your mind to check that out before you attacked Duncan? No, probably not.

Anonymous said...

You can link to them. People might not be able to see them, but you can link to them, and then those people can decide whether it's worth it to them to subscribe, pay their little fee to read for a day, or google the headline and find it some other way.

So yes, it did cross my mind, and the answer is still: It's courteous to link to the story.

Are you seriously going to argue against that, blackdog? You would be fine with people copying and pasting Source articles onto other places, thus robbing you of pageviews? I find this very hard to believe.