Slaughter On Tenth Avenue

Starting out the work week with violence...

What's The Problem?

Amazon is pursuing offering a backlist subscription service for ebooks to their Prime customers. Some people find this upsetting. I'm not really sure why.

I suppose it's probably because I'm not a David Foster Wallace fan, or something.

Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest Opening Titles from Roger D. Evans on Vimeo.

This is just way too cool.

Homeopathy Works

Robb Allen has proof.

100 Years of London Style

NPR Top 100 SF Books

The NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels with the ones I have read in bold:

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert (First three only)

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (First two books only)

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

25. The Stand, by Stephen King

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks

68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore

74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony (The first three)

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Fait and Balanced

The New York Times shows how not to do it.

I don't have a dog in the Dutch immigration fight. Has the Times lost all interest in presenting a fair portrait of political opinions? If this is the way they are presenting the news these days, it's not wonder they're losing readership and influence.

Pushing the Analogy

John McCain has doubled down. And he shouldn't have.

He really shouldn't have fired back. Because if we are hobbits, I think that means he thinks he is an Istari (wizard). I agree with him in that. In terms of American contemporary politics he is in fact a wizard.

He is Saruman.

You're welcome, by the way.

Pretty much, this

Reflections on E-Publishing

I've been downloading a lot of free e-published books. Project Gutenberg, for those few who are not familiar with it, is a god send to the frugal reader. At this point they have an amazing assortment of out of copyright texts, ranging from text books to novels to poetry and any sort of non-fiction imaginable.

I've also bought a few e-books. I'm not averse to paying authors for their content. Quite the opposite. I'm just frugal and impoverished right now.

What I've noticed are the price points for e-books. Some very savvy people give books away for free. This makes perfect sense when you realize that the very first book of a very popular science fiction series (Honor Harrington) is part of the give away. I'm told drug dealers use a very similar marketing ploy quite successfully. An enormous number of works at Amazon have the firts chapter free for the same reason.

Amazon has a great many short stories for sale at $.99. That price point also covers out of copyright books that someone has taken the trouble of tweaking into a modern format, with linkable tables of content and such. This is perfect for those who can not tolerate typos as well as those who wish to sample the more modern authors.

The next price points are $1.99 and $2.99. I'm inclined to think that the latter represents savvy self published authors. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a fair number of works at $2.99. She has some bundled works at $4.99 as well.

I think the pricing here is brilliant. $2.99 is low enough for impulse purchasing. You read the first chapter, like what you've read and plunk down the dough for the rest of the story. Once you've finished enjoying it, you track down her other works and buy them as well. The dollar amounts are small enough that you can spend without thinking too hard, classic impulse buys.

Ms Rusch's big publishing house stories are priced at $9.99 and up. She set the prices on the other stuff. Her publisher set that price. I think the publishers are missing the point here. We all know the cost of an ebook is nominal compared to a hard cover or a trade paperback. The price is such that few people will buy on a whim. The market for such books is limited to people who are already interested in that story and have no other option to read it.

At that price point, people will look for it at the library or used rather than pay full retail. There are some pretty clever people in publishing, but I think they are missing the point here. E-publishing offers the opportunity to turn the long tail of the back list into a profit centre. Only one publisher, Baen, has really embraced the change. It's no accident that Baen is small house that is largely independent. Most of the big publishers are subsidiaries of much larger firms and as such are extremely conservative.

That might hurt them.

As for what prompted the above, several people have recommended John Donnelly's Gold by Brian Noggle. It looks interesting. It's also priced at $9.99 at Amazon, so I'm not going to be reading it for a while.

Quote of the Day

Better (a thousand times better) an atheist who believes in objective truth than a “religious” person who does not. - Paul Marks

From Samizdata

Gary, Indiana

I'm not sure why I find pictures of dying cities so haunting, but I do.

From Boing Boing.

Pwnage

Happy Happy Joy Joy

An indoor range has opened very near to us. If I can somehow start getting income again, life would be lovely.

Important News

Jerry Pournelle will be podcasting via TWiT.

That is all.

We Have Found The Solution

Businesses are leaving California at a record rate, mostly due to its unfriendly regulatory and tax regimes. California has a multiplicity of boards and commissions that make navigating the governmental maze to get permission to do something extraordinarily difficult.

The good news is that the elected officials are aware of the problem.

So they're forming an agency to study it and come up with a solution.

"Later this year, California will set up a new agency that will serve as a focal point for economic development and job creation, he said. Among its goals will be to reverse the perception that California is business-unfriendly."

California, where the jokes write themselves.

Whistling Past The Graveyard

I don't think David Plouffe is fooling anyone. He's throwing it out there because he is a deniable source and on the off chance a useful idiot will bite.

And for the record, one of the things that keeps biting the President in the behind is a little trick they've been playing with the unemployment statistics. Every month they announce the statistics, which typically show some slight improvement in unemployment. They also announce that they are revising the prior two months statistics downwards. That helps the current figures until the next month.

What makes me curious is whether they are relying on Mr Obama's acknowledged strengths as a campaigner to pull them through. I'm not seeing any good economic news on the horizon (jobs are stagnant, inflation recognized or not, is up, up up). My inner conspiracy theorist wonders if they will suddenly gin up some sort of political crisis near the election. The problem with that scenario is that the Iran hostage crisis really didn't help Mr Carter. By now no one thinks President Obama shines with foreign affairs.

I Don't Quite Follow, Would You Please Repeat It?

Ed Milliband, UK Labour Party Leader answers hardball questions from the ever hard hitting BBC.

Note how the professional journalist presses the Labour leader until he cracks.

/sarcasm

{From here}

If You're Going To Read Just One Webcomic

Make it Schlock Mercenary.

I read several. I love 'Day by Day', Oglaf (massively NSFW), Erfworld, Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic and Order of the Stick.

They're all great. But Schlock has a proven track record of always appearing every day for years. It's quality has been amazingly consistent as well.

Howard Tayler, the creator, currently has a buffer of forty days worth of comics.

Just amazing.

How To Maintain Your Linux Computer

Awesome article on the subject here.

Please excuse me while I feel smug. Linux is insanely easy sometimes.

Lifehacker is a great site. Poke around there a bit while you're there.

Uncharitable Semi Rant

Like half of America, I have a Facebook account. Also like most of those on Facebook, I use it to keep track of extended family and old college chums. It's a nice way to mark milestones in acquaintances' lives. I don't anything of real significance there and it doesn't link to any vital or financial information. Hack my Facebook account and you can see the exact same pictures you could see before you hacked my account.

Today I received something from Facebook that surprised me no end. A group I joined back in the dawn of time was spamming my email account with banal Facebook messages. I thought I joined them as a mailing list, although it is possible that I joined them on Facebook when I first signed up.

Here's the rant. Why on earth would someone resurrect a group that had been dead and buried for over two years? We all lost interest more than two years ago (one of the glories of most social media is you can look at the dates on messages). Until Monday, the last message on the group was from early 2009. Most of the messages were from early 2008.

The same people who spammed the group into banal oblivion and howled down any real meaningful discussion back in 2007-2008 were spamming each other again. It's very much like those zombies movies where you think the good guys have killed all the zombies, they've buried them for good and a skeletal hand reaches up from the ground and grabs a foot.

Let the dead stay dead, I say. If you miss the old crowd so much, why not start a new group? Then you can spam each other as much as you like.

Me, I quit the group, again. And set Gmail to mark all the messages received as spam. I'm also exploring ways to set my Facebook settings to 'dull', 'bland' or 'unexciting'.

Good Gaming News

In the midst of my despair of the state of real estate and contemplating a bleak future, I stumbled across this: It seems Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMORPG Bioware has been working on since forever doesn't suck. It's actually pretty good. And that's from a guy in the very early "friends 'n family" beta.

It's not much, but I'll take what I can get.

RIP Peter Falk

He was a wonderful actor. Most people remember him for Colombo, a role which made real. But my favourite role of his was when he played a grandfather:

Best Selling Idea

My cursory market research reveals that if you really want to write a best seller, it must have angst ridden vampire teenagers in a winner takes all dance contest.

Now you know.

Actually, I'd go there

Apparently at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas, you can eat, drink and enjoy a movie, but you may not text.

The following is the voicemail that was left for them by one disgruntled ejectee (NSFW for language).

Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Reporters are complaining that Sarah Palin is making their lives difficult. It's as though she were paying them back for being mean about her all those years.

I'm still not convinced she's make a good President, but I do love how she handles the press.

Science Answers An Important Question

Briar Patch, Don't Throw Me Dep't.

"If the Victorians turned up off our shores and threatened me with a gold standard, 7% taxes, property rights, free trade, the right to bear arms, the restitution of double jeopardy, free association, and the right to remain silent, while at the same time guaranteeing the repeal of civil forfeiture and detention without trial, etc., etc., etc., I would welcome them with open arms."

From here.

Too Much Fun For Words

Click to make some music

From here

Where Are the Heroes of Yesteryear?

What Are You Afraid Of?

For My Two Hipster Readers

Some news you can use:

PonyCraft 2

The Grass is Always Greener

Right now, I'm wishing I lived in South Carolina. It's been at least a decade since I enjoyed CLE.

{H/T David Hardy}

It's Got a Great Beat and I Can Dance To It

Surprise hit out of Israel that's sweeping the Mideast.

Hometown Thuggery

The State Capitol is the first building you see. Apparently the police officer you barely see at the end didn't see the attack.

Nice to see a return to civility.

Thought Exercise

Let's suppose that you think there needs to be a new law. You want to stop bad people, help the unfortunate, whatever you want. You think a new law will help in that regard.

Try phrasing your new rule. "People should stop being mean" will fail as a law as there are no criteria for defining who mean people are. "No one should dump sulphur into rivers" will likely work. We know what sulphur is and we know what rivers are. The only vague term is 'dumping' and that is defined in several places under existing law.

Which raises another issue. Is your rule already adequately covered by an existing law? If so, then there really isn't any need for a new one.

You then need to attach a penalty to your law. If there are no consequences for breaking your law, then it will be broken. Generally pollution statutes have multiple levels of offense, depending upon the quantity of substance used. A teaspoon of sulphur is quite a different matter from a ton. Usually minor breaches are punished by a fine, while major breaches may be punishable by prison.

The next issue is who enforces the law. The EPA is the obvious enforcement agency, but since you want to protect rivers, the Coast Guard might also be a good candidate.

Finally, what unintended consequences could there be? With sulphur dumping, probably little to none. The law already covers similar issues without any real difficulty. However, imagine that the law is to be enforced by the person you trust the least in American politics. If you think of yourself as a progressive, how might Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee enforce your rule? If you are a conservative, Dennis Kucinich might be your bete noir.

Anyone can always enforce a law arbitrarily, so think of ways that your villain might enforce the law fairly, as written, but not within its spirit.

How might Pat Robertson see hate crime legislation, for example?

Next time you push for a law, ask yourself if you are potentially creating a new weapon to be used against you. Because if there is one certainty in politics, it's that the wheel turns and the outsiders eventually become insiders.

Hide and Seek

There are fourteen Wisconsin state senators in hiding in Illinois right now. They are living life on the lam, roughing it in a variety of cheap motels, changing hideouts when they are discovered.

My question is why are they changing motels? I seriously doubt Illinois will extradite the fugitives, if it that were even possible. The tea party has never struck me as the kidnapping sort. The Governor of Wisconsin likewise is no Jimmy Cagney.

Why then do they flee?

World Builder (high quality)

Gorgeous birds

The Internet- News Traveling At The Speed of Light

An Australian newspaper has apparently discovered the secret formula for Coca Cola.

Which was published in the Atlanta Constitution back in 1979. And has been reprinted since in other media, including the book Big Secrets by William Poundstone (published 1985).

Not to mention every soft drink manufacturer has a cola flavour, some of which are indistinguishable from 'The Real Thing'.

Engage!

Because

I'm a man, I want one of these very badly indeed.

No, I have no illusion that I'll ever thwart a train robbery. Yes, I would be more likely to injure myself.

None of that matters in the least. Want.

Starring Sir Todd Bridges...

CumberLand Gap

Andrew Klavan: The Highway to Hell, Leftist Remix Edition

Friday K!Pop

Time Sink

This really neat map of American dialects.

It's Breakfast! (NSFW)

Have yourselves a scary little Solstice

I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek

Cat vs Pumpkin

Three Hankies

But Will They Void My Warranty?

From here

Richard Epstein Speaks Truth to Power

An Eye Opener

This is extremely disheartening, but has the ring of truth.

From Instapundit

Give the Gift of Cigarettes this Christmas

New Vice

Marcona Almonds from Costco are insanely addictive.

Something About Writing Worth Remembering

Even Jane Austen wrote the occasional clanger.
We never return to the Abbey at Northanger.

I'm A Denier

Cold Feets

Pity you can't see the number. When we saw it on Broadway it reminded both of us of the Nicholas Brothers. There aren't a lot of numbers that have two guys tapping in tandem any more. Which is an indictment of modern dance, if you ask me. Which you didn't.

What To Take Away From This

What I hear and see isn't the content, which is very much a tempest in a teacup, it's how rude they are. This is why I loathe MSNBC and not PBS. Both are equally progressive, but people generally don't interrupt each other or belittle each other face to face on PBS. There is no information exchange or debate. It's all emotional outbursts by people with little to no self control.

My Thoughts on the Election Last Night

Is Obama A Keynesian? Rally For Sanity, 10/30/10

All Things Being Equal

Would it be better to have a bad liar as governor or a good liar as governor?

As far as I know, Rick Scott is not a liar, so all things are likely not equal in Florida. But the question is worth considering.

I think it boils down to credibility. If the candidate just can not tell lies without giving away that she's lying (i.e. facial expressions), then I would vote for her. If she can not get away with lying due to incompetence (which would be the case here), then I would not vote for her.

The difference is that incompetence is rarely confined only to one area. If she habitually shoots herself in the foot, then she shouldn't be allowed near any dangerous objects, not just firearms.

I've Worked So Hard

Dies Irae

Because Monday is Chant Day

Whining- With Computers!

My main computer is a powerful homebrew that dual boots Linux and Windows. I do most of my work in Linux, but all my games run on Windows.

Yesterday, I took a break from Dragon Age (elves rule, werewolves drool!) to try an upgrade. I've had a copy of Windows 7 for a while so I though it might be a good idea to make the move from XP. Sally was planning to go to her cult meeting (Atlanta Beading Society). The afternoon would be free for geeky goodness.

Sidenote: Initially I was go to also make the jump from Ubuntu 9.10 to Ubuntu 10.10. But I found out that the folks at Canonical had switched from the user unfriendly, but powerful xsane to the very user friendly but buggy Simple Scan. I live and die by the scanner in my job so the Ubuntu upgrade died a merciful death.

Back to the main story: I wanted to do the GRUB update before Windows so I could see and recover from any boot manager errors. That took a lot longer than expected due to user error (I goofed). That it was a common error is small consolation. Error 15 has its own entry in the FAQ!

I finally recovered from my goof and did the Windows install. What took for ever was the misnamed 'easy transfer' which generated a huge file in two parts. THe actual install went smoothly after I bought and used an external hard drive for the easy transfer.

The second part of easy transfer also took forever. Then came reloading all the games. Which actually took less time than I had expected. Re-setting up Firefox went smoothly. Re-establishing the dual boot was a nightmare.

Turns out Windows will never recognize a non-Microsoft OS (I expected that). What I didn't expect was that Grub2 couldn't do the job. I wasted hours trying to get it to jump through hoops and do party tricks. I came across a reference to a third party boot manager easyBCD. That did the trick within a minute of installation.

I love free software.

Day of rest- not this past Sunday.

See You in November

City of the Future

Musical Interlude

Public Opinion Polls

Wannabe has a great post about a recent poll.

I think this short clip summarizes my opinion on them:

Interesting

Michele Bachmann is the incumbent congresswoman for the sixth district in Minnesota. Her opponent is Tarryl Clark. The only hint as to what political party Ms. Clark belongs to is a note in her biography that she was the associate chair of the Minnesota DFL.

She is also a member of St John's Church in St. Cloud. That would be St John's Episcopal Church. She is shy about her church affiliation as well.

The race is getting vicious, but Ms. Clark is staying mum about her party affiliation.

FYI, Michele Bachmann is a Republican. She isn't shy about admitting it. I don't know what church she belongs to, if any.

I think it's interesting that a candidate feels she has to try to conceal who and what she is to run for office. I have voted for Democrats in the past. I will likely vote for them in the future. I would never vote for a candidate like Tarryl Clark. If you can not tell me up front who you are and who you are affiliated with, then how could I ever rely on you to tell me where you stand?

Lowlands

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band are favourites of mine.

No Pressure- Vile Ad

It's apparently supposed to be 'funny'.

From Moe Lane.

Best Commercial Ever

Political Reflection

I've decided I'm angry enough to make a political ad, but not mad enough to actually run for office.

The Cat Song

Everything Makes Sense Now

pi x 1337% = 42.

Much becomes clear now.

Bad to the Finnish

Finland is raising taxes on chocolate and ice cream.

Luckily, the US doesn't have a nanny state type government that needs money.

Oh snap!

Why The US Is In Dire Shape

We are being run by idiots who think ideas like this are good ones.

Defining Moment of Awesome

Truth

We aren't that sort of prejudiced bigot. We're a different sort of prejudiced bigot.

Good News Even If You Are A Democrat

If Prof. Sabato is correct then we won't have to listen to Nancy Pelosi anymore. That's a very good thing. I've had an inordinate dislike for her ever since the “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Arrogance and condescension such as that has no place in American politics.

On a related note, President Obama has never had to deal with opposition in his political career. How will he handle the next two years if control of Congress passes to the Republicans? Some are claiming he will become Clintonesque, others say he will channel former President Carter. If it happens, I think he will chart his own course.

Small Thought About LIbrarians And Their Blogs

I read a lot of blogs. The top profession represented amongst the blogs I read is attorney, because, go figure, I read a lot of law blogs. The next profession is reporter which is entirely attributable to the news blogs I read. It's the third profession that has me wondering. There are three blogs by librarians that I read on a regular basis. The Midwest Conservative Journal by Christopher Johnson blogs mostly about Piskie stuff with forays into pulp detective fiction and politics. Pygmy Puffs and Heffalumps is by my friend Zana and is mostly about her life with the odd Piskie bit. The Breda Fallacy is by Breda who mostly blogs about the offbeat, the funny and gun rights.

The only commonality I can attribute to the three other than profession is all three bloggers have a great deal of horse sense.

Addendum: All three are also funny. Is that a typical trait for librarians?

I thought as much

Quote of the day

"The Pope is not a pedicurist" from Volokh Conspiracy

I Want Your Money- Movie Trailer

Lady Java- Pop Music

NSFW for lyrics. Funny though.

A Lesson in Polish History

Pretty neat!

Amazing

This is just plain neat.

Pure Ownage

Obscure Reference

California has become a very Illinois of woes.

Points for anyone who can identify the original.

I crack me up.

The original is by Demosthenes, "An Iliad of woes"

Silent Monks Singing Halleluia

I thought as much

The Anglican Church of Canada has gone to the dogs.

I don't know if it's art, but I like it.

A Drug Raid Goes Viral: Radley Balko on the Missouri SWAT Raid

Hamlet! the Musical!

Sally and I finally got back together with Sandy and John to go see Hamlet! the Musical! at the Shakespeare Tavern. Sandy and John are a neat couple and it's always a treat to see a show with them.

The Good: The new musical numbers are good. Bad (remix) was a showstopper. The actors were all in fine voice and the songs were sung clearly so my aging ears could hear the words. The performances were excellent as well. It helped that a fair number of the actors had played the same roles in the recent dramatic production of Hamlet. Jeff McKerley has amazing comic timing.

The Bad: The play doesn't work as a cohesive mass. Individual bits were excellent, but the setting just didn't gel.

The Indifferent: The old material has aged a bit. We saw Charm School a while back, which was also by Eddie 'Levi' Lee and it was even creakier. Or maybe I'm just jaded.

Fork Time

Harry Reid's senatorial career is over. When a Democrat loses the dead vote, stick a fork in him, he's done.

Radney Foster: A Little Revival