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Archive for January, 2011
Tor.com Wants Your Vote for the Best SF Novels of 2000-2010
Friday, January 14th, 2011The Fake Book Charity Box Scam
Thursday, January 13th, 2011So, you’ve got some old books and see a big box that says “Books for Charity” on the side, and you think “Well, that’s better than selling them to a used bookstore, isn’t it?”
Not so fast. You could be about ready to fall for a Penny Seller scam. A tiny portion, 25% or less, goes to charity; the rest of the books are sold for profit for a company called Thrift Recycling Management, or pulped.
They’re also torpedoing friends of the library sales, which are a much more deserving destination for your book donations than a for-profit company that doles out a few pennies for charity.
Stanley Kubrick’s Iron Man
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Disclaimer of the Year
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011The views and opinions expressed by GWAR do not reflect those of The Pentagon Channel or the Department of Defense
Well, thank God they cleared that up. I just naturally assumed that the views of a 1980s metal band in alien monster costumes did indeed reflect the opinions of the Defense Department of the United States of America, and will have to adjust my opinions on overseas base closing strategies appropriately. In light of this shocking revelation, I must also reconsider my long-held beliefs that Motley Crüe reflected the official views of the Secretary of State for events in southeast Asia, and that the pronouncements of H.R. Pufnstuf adequately reflected official Department of Energy policy on building additional nuclear power plants…
Chewing on Bob’s Burgers
Monday, January 10th, 2011So, I finished watching Bob’s Burgers, and thought I would delay writing about it until today because I’m incredibly lazy I wanted to ruminate on it for a while. The short description is: It’s not great. Not awful, but not great.
A few random thoughts:
- Right now it seems more than a little generic (family with three kids: lord knows we’ve never seen that on a Fox animated Sunday show).
- The setup (small business owner vs. the bureaucracy) has the potential to be good, but most of the restaurant gags already seem stale.
- I like two of the three kids, but the quiet girl and the father don’t do much for me.
- The mother, with her generic New York Jewish Mother accent, does less than nothing for me. If you talk like that, you damn well better look like Fran Drescher if you want people west of the Hudson to endure your voice.
- The edgy stuff (the suggestions of cannibalism, the funny daughter putting up a notice for a hamburger special called The Child Molester (“it comes with candy on the side”)) didn’t bother me (after all, I watch South Park), but the “can’t remember my wedding anniversary/old boyfriend” business was so old it might have been written by Henny Youngman. (No, scratch that; if Henny Youngman had written it, it would have been funnier.)
- Every now and then there was a funny bit, but there weren’t enough of them.
- I don’t want to write it off entirely, because the first episodes of animated shows frequently suck (have you watched “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” recently?); it might very well get better.
- I was able to watch all of it, unlike Sit Down, Shut Up (I’m amazed that lasted all of four episodes).
- It’s still better than The Cleveland Show, which I couldn’t last beyond the first commercial break of the premiere, and even that took willpower. Every time since I’ve happened to catch part of it, something would make me turn it off before two minutes had passed. It seems that every time Seth McFarlane creates a new show, his old shows become half as funny. Which is why I gave up on Family Guy shortly after the O.J. Simpson episode.
I’ll probably watch the next episode of Bob’s Burgers, but if it doesn’t improve I expect it to fall off my list well before Fox axes it 6-8 weeks from now…
Bob’s Burgers: Flash 1/3rd of the Way In Report
Sunday, January 9th, 2011So it’s the first commercial break for Bob’s Burgers, the new animated show after The Simpsons on Fox. So far, I’m sort of enjoying it, not because it’s great (it’s OK: moderately funny, too predictable), but simply because it’s not The Cleveland Show…
Jew Got Served
Friday, January 7th, 2011Normally I don’t link to something that’s already been on the Fark tab, but this Fiddler on the Roof/You Got Served mashup is too good to pass up:
The Top 500 Books Sold at Auction in 2010
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011Here’s an article on the top book price realized at auction in 2010, topped by a first edition of the legendary Audobon Birds of America, which pulled in an astounding $11,321,215, or four times the price realized for the Shakespeare First Folio that came in at fifth place at a measly $2,315,273.
Not a lot of books of particular genre interest, but there is an inscribed first of A Christmas Carol, and I’m sure that Howard Waldrop will find this copy of The Book of John Mandaville, the most complete version in Middle English known, and which sold for $447,282, of interest.
And here’s the entire list in spreadsheet format for the hardcore.
Edited to Add: Top link should work now, though you’ll have to click on the article link there.
Edited to Add 2: Link now even more cromulent, thanks to the sleuthing of SF Signal’s John DeNardo.
Screw Macy’s
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011From Dwight comes news that the Macy’s in Highland Mall is closing. Sad news for anyone losing their job, but I can’t really work up much sympathy on the care-o-meter otherwise.
Which is a real shame, because I used to be a regular shopper at that store…when it was a Foley’s. Foley’s was a Houston-based department store chain that offered decent prices on good products. (I did a short stint as Christmas help at one of their stores long before I had a lawn to chase you punk kids off of.) Macy’s, by contrast, expected you to pay list price in the Internet era for the privilege of shopping at Macy’s. So I stopped going and never looked back.
There’s a lesson for businessmen there: Don’t do away with a cherished local brand for the sake of uniformity. The pennies you save on printing costs are far outweighed by the dollars you lose in ill-will.
Of course my disdain and indifference is nothing compared to the white-hot hatred of people unfortunate enough to work there.
Recent Library Acquisitions: Greg Bear’s Sleepside Story
Monday, January 3rd, 2011I have a complete collection of Greg Bear’s first edition hardbacks (though I do still need to pick up a copy of the recently published Hull Zero Three). However, until recently I was missing two Bear books, one very easy to find (Foundation and Chaos, a copy of which I just picked up at one-quarter the publisher’s price), and the other one, the Cheap Street Sleepside Story, very expensive. However, I finally picked up a copy from a noted SF dealer having a 50% off sale (the same dealer I bought the first edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four from) for $175.
Here are some pictures. The open book and traycase are too large to fit on my scanner, and the visible weave of the cloth made it hard to get a good picture without getting moire patterns:
Full description:
Bear, Greg. Sleepside Story. Cheap Street, 1988. First edition hardback, one of 127 total copies, of which this is one of 52 copies signed by Bear and artist Judy King-Rieniets comprising the “Publisher’s Edition,” done in two-part red and black Japanese cloth, a fine copy in Japanese cloth tray case, without dust jacket, as issued.
For those unaware of the press, Cheap Street was the imprint of Nan and George O’Nale, founded in 1980, doing very small runs of beautiful, hand-bound books. (Jack Chalker noted that they were the only publishers that refused to provide information for The Science Fantasy Publishers, the massive book on SF small presses that he and Mark Ownings compiled, and described them as temperamental, secretive, and hostile, at least to him. Like many of Jack’s descriptions in The Science Fantasy Publishers, there are probably several grains of truth to that view which also need to be taken with several grains of salt…) The last science fiction book they did was Howard Waldrop’s Flying Saucer Rock and Roll (which I also have), though Howard tells me they did one non-SF book after that, a book of jokes related to the Forest Service (which George O’Nale had evidently worked for). Unfortunately, in 2003 the O’Nale’s committed double-suicide, leaving behind careful instructions as to where their bodies would be found and for the disposition of their estate.
I don’t have a complete Cheap Street set, though I do have a goodly number, and hope to pick up the rest when I can find them at attractive prices.
Edited to Add: This first issue of Andrew Porter’s fanzine Monadock reprints the Roanoke Times piece on the O’Nale suicide, the original of which no longer appears to be up on the Roanoke Times website.