VP Debate

I guess I should say something about the Vice Presidential Debate. I have to tell you, I've actually gotten to the point where I can listen to the President, but the Vice President, I just want to reach through the screen and smack him.

So, the VP Debate, I fell asleep.

I did watch The Daily Show coverage though and they had some lovely Dick Cheney moments. First, Cheney asserted that as President of the Senate for the last four years that for some reason he hadn't met John Edwards until the debate. Which Stewart followed with a photo of Cheney sitting next to Edwards on a panel several years ago. Do you think Cheney just forgot? Which would be worse, forgetting or lying outright? I think lying outright is worse because that means he thinks we are so stupid that we wouldn't remember - or even check. I also think that's what it was.

Speaking of checking, later in the debate the Vice President in an effort to deflect charges about Halliburton suggested that viewers log onto the the net and check out http://www.factcheck.com as they had the true story. The headline on that site is:

"President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values."

Since factcheck.com redirects one to a site run by George Soros I think its more likely that Mr. Cheney meant to have people look at http://www.factcheck.org although I'm uncertain that was a good idea anyway as the lead the following day on that site was:

"Cheney got our domain name wrong -- calling us "FactCheck.com" -- and wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton.
In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right."

Maybe the VP should just lay off the hip internet references. Although it may explain something. I mean someone that mistakes ".org" for ".com" could easily mistake "Iran" for "Iraq."

Where to begin

At the end of the Sunny Randall post I suggested that one might want to read 40 Spenser books before reading the most recent Parker offering. After some thought it seems like that wasn't a good suggestion. So, first up, a link of the day:

http://www.spensarium.com/

That's a complete Parker rundown, with all the titles for all the characters. There's good information there too. I just learned that the spark for the Sunny Randall character was Helen Hunt calling Parker and asking him to write a character for her. I wonder why the movie never happened.

So back to the 40 Spenser books. The first book is from way back when and is called "The Godwulf Manuscript." The only thing I can recall about it is that I have read it. Realizing that I thought back to why I became interested in the character to begin with and remembered that it had more to do with Robert Urich than Robert Parker. Urich and Avery Brooks stared in "Spenser for Hire" on ABC when I was in high school. They even spun off Brooks onto his own short lived show "A Man Called Hawk" but it didn't last. The roots of my interest are more from the television show than from the early books I read, and to this day the actors and design choices from the show color what I see in my head when I read the books.

So, for someone just starting the series, I don't think I would begin at the beginning. I think actually that it might be better to start at the beginning of the Sunny Randall books (there are now four). That way you could get the feel for the style and not feel like you're missing all the backstory. The first Sunny book is "Family Honor."

Of the Spenser books, my all time favorite is "A Catskill Eagle." The book puts Susan in danger and shows what Spenser is willing to do to save her. I can still remember specific scenes out of that story and I must have read it over ten years ago. It's not a good first read though, as you want to have an appreciation of Spenser's relationships with Susan and with Hawk before you dive into this story.

The other titles, looking at them I can often remember stories, but not which story goes with which book. "Potshot" is good, but not a good first read as it's a consolidation of all the tough guys from all the other books. I liked "Hugger Mugger" and "Small Vices." "Walking Shadow" is fun because the story centers around a theatre company. Those are all later titles, earlier ones I think I would look at "Mortal Stakes", "Promised Land", "Looking for Rachel Walace", and "Early Autumn."

But really I love them all, and all three characters, and even the Wyatt Earp book "Gunman's Rhapsody." I haven't read the baseball book yet ("Double Play") but I'm sure its good too. In most cases its not the plot that makes the books good, its the details. Its in the personal code that all of his characters define their lives by, and its in the conversations between friends and the internal monologues the character's run while alone. It's in Boston, which is like another character in all the books, and the other people in the background: the friends, the cops, and the crooks. Along with that its in the clothes and the cooking, and the food and the drinks, and the bars and the gym, and in Pearl the wonder dog, the other Pearl the wonder dog, and Rosie Randall.

Just great stuff, all of it.

Aside

I think that it is very interesting that the spell checker built into the Blogger app does not think "blog", "blogger", or "bloggers" are words. That would seem like an oversite.

Blogger says...

The Blogger dashboard page has suggestions about how to make your blog more interesting. Recently it said that you should post asking readers what they would like to see in your blog, or more specifically:

"I started trying to track down the origins of this idea but then I realized that my sweater was completely unraveled. Still, a bunch of bloggers with cameras are having fun with it so here goes: Ask your readers to think of three photos they'd like to see posted to your blog. (Things around your house or whatever.) When you have enough requests, post them! See: How to post pictures for help. Have fun!"

So ok, I'm game. The editorial management of "There are no bad ideas" is officially soliciting suggestions for content. Let me have it.

Melancholy Baby

A Sunny Randall Novel

Last night, far too late last night, I read the new Robert Parker book cover to cover. I can't remember what book was the first one I ever read like that, in one sitting but I think that if I had been encouraged to do that more that I might have read more.

This one is as good as any of the other Sunny Randall books, although for a few pages I thought I had read it before. Somehow Sunny seems to wind up with the client living in her loft fairly often. I admit to being predisposed to liking these stories. If the count I saw today is accurate I've read something like 40 Spenser, Jesse Stone, & Sunny Randall books all together.

I was a little bit disturbed with the way the book started. Sonny's ex Ritchie has just remarried. Parker had worked some parallel constructions for the main characters and their relationships. Spenser and Susan, Jesse and his ex-wife (Jenn I think), and Sonny and Ritchie, all of them bound together and yet unable to be together for some unexplained reason. So Ritchie's new wife breaks this format a little. I guess this is ok though, as some of the other character development more than makes up for it. Sonny goes to therapy in this book, and her therapist turns out to be Susan. Since I read the first Jesse Stone I have been wondering when the grand unifying Parker novel will be written. Something where seemingly unrelated PI cases bring both Spenser and Sunny into Jesse's jurisdiction. The other books have always been on the edge of this. Jesse Stone has met Glen Healy, and Sonny has met Tony Marcus both of whom are from the Spenser books. This time Sonny meets Belson and spends quite a bit of time with Susan. It really tied things closer together between all the stories. I guess I'll have to wait a little longer for the Parker 3-way story, but this little taste reinforces my thought that it will be great if he ever writes it.

Anyway, its a good book and you should check it out - although you might want to read 31 Spenser books first, and you might not want to start this one at 1:00 in the morning.

INTERLOPERS!!!

Spotted recently in the Yale School of Drama Alumni Magazine:

That'd be four party crashers at the Yale Booze & Schmooze. In fact four CMU Drama party crashers.

So Dino, Jason, Nick & Jason, congratulations you've made the big time. You've now been in the Yale Alumni magazine one more time than I have.

Pundits agree: Just kill me now

Well folks, It's "Wait till next year time" again on the North Side. But really, did anyone actually expect anything else? It's nice how some things are dependable in life: the rising of the sun, the changing of the seasons, and the collapsing of the Cubs.

I actually have a different theory. I believe that George W. Bush is responsible for the Cubs late season slide this year. The Bush machine knows that with yet another devastating disappointment that Cubs fans everywhere will be dropped into an (annual) deep depression and will be that much less likely to come out and vote after yet another world series without their team. Have any doubts about this scenario? Just look at who did win the wildcard. It wouldn't be a team from the President's own home state would it?

Day of dismay at Wrigley Expect better. It is manager Dusty Baker's pledge to himself as much as to those Cubs fans who had the highest of expectations for the team when the season began.

Dusty still in denial on 'choke' Cubs manager Dusty Baker disputes the idea in some circles that his team choked. ''That's just a word for not having another word,'' he said. ''It's sort of disheartening that people feel that bad, but you can't stop people from how they feel. Is everybody that doesn't win a choker? We played a lot of games in a short period of time.''

Collective groan follows Cubs' collapse They knew it was a long shot. But maybe the Cubs could pull this one out and maybe fate would curse some other teams for a change and maybe the Cubs would keep winning.

Players rue little things that led to '04 collapse The Atlanta Braves beat the Cubs for the second straight day Saturday to eliminate them from playoff contention. But Cubs catcher Michael Barrett couldn't get it out of his mind that the Braves were fearful of a division series clash with the Cubs.

Baker hopes to keep focus on field in '05 Some Cubs officials were not pleased to read Steve Stone's comments in Saturday's papers in which Stone said he regretted nothing when asked about the fallout from his critical remarks about Dusty Baker's managing.

They just plain blew it How else to describe a star-studded team falling so short of such lofty expectations?

Not sure this will help

A link of the day:

http://www.pornforkerry.com/

You know where I stand on this election, and I'm glad to see anyone pitching in. Perhaps this particular group ought to have just sent a check. But they didn't.

I heard about this on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR this weekend. A group of adult entertainers has put together a film for fundraising purposes. They are donating 100% of the profits from their film "Fahrenheit 69" to "fortify Kerry Campaign efforts in the crucial battleground states!"

I really don't know what to say. I guess when an election is this tight you don't turn down any help. Do you think Al Franken has ever in his life thought he would be depicted in a porn flick? Well, perhaps this will energize a previously untapped demographic of unlikely voters - now if they could only be sure they will leave the house on election day.

I know what Don King would say.

"Only in America!"

Ellipsis...

Larry King does this in his column, I wonder if it is for the same reason... The Cubs lost again today, they are pretty much out of it baring a miracle... Kittens are more fun when you are wearing pants... It sucks to be sick, but not as much as it sucks to be sick and living with someone who is sick... School programs are destined to have the same battles over rules with students every year... The Star Wars DVDs are quite cool even if they are a guilty pleasure... Would a Cubs miracle be too much to ask for... Academia is a good place for people challenged by early mornings... There's little that seems reasonable amongst many reasonable accommodations... I don't think Kerry changed any minds last night... Melissa has a new DVD and live album out, Amazon delivered them yesterday... One of my students is recording her show progress here: http://malfitd.blogspot.com/... George W really is awful... Marisa could really use some electricians for the next few weeks if you know any... a student I wish I could claim more credit for sent me their new web-page here: http://www.the-scenic-route.com/index.html... Does anyone know where all my money went... Even if they make the playoffs, they'll only lose again... "Shift-F7" may be one of the greatest things ever invented by Microsoft... I eat too much from The O... You can't really use the "<>" symbols in an HTML environment... My hope for Best Man left me a message a week ago and I've yet to return the call... Everyone seems to be updating less now that the academic year is rolling... It takes a very long time to get anything done at a university... I can't make them care about their thesis project, they have to come to that place themselves... No matter how much time there is, there isn't enough time... Yesterday I actually wondered what to do about crab grass... Peg is obviously not from Chicago - or Boston...

Just kill me now.

Last week the Cubs and the Giants were pretty much in a dead heat for the NL wildcard and the Astros were forgotten. The Cubs next two series were against sub .500 teams and the Giants were playing teams that were over .500. Today the Astros and the Giants are tied for the wildcard and the Cubs are at least 1 1/2 games back.

Somehow the Cubs managed to lose 5 out of 6 to the Mets and the Reds.

Finding a way to lose. It's a Chicago sports tradition.

At least I won't have to go through all that playoff stress I did last year - all for naught. You think I would have learned by now.