Book Board Chat

whenever i took too long in our bath room, my college roommate would pound on the door and start reciting longfellow. she knew that would hurry me up. i love poetry, just not his so much.

jim welcome home. excitedly await pictures.

sam congratulations. there is nothing so wonderful as when your child achieves something wonderful.

beth thank you for suggesting 'open season' by archer mayer to bama; whether she likes it or not, i love it.

i know. and the old computer chatboard went its own way, too.

Computer Chat
computers.ultimatechat.net
Ultimate Chat.net The Ultimate place to chat, if you liked chatting on eBay...

mysteryhorse, thanks. i used that one and now my sound has been restored. i was talking about the old ebay chatboard for computers from the dark ages, back when towers still took floppy discs.

happy birthday, diane.

does anyone know the url where the old ebay computer board went? i have done my bi-annual 'oh, noooo!' to my computer and need xyste and soundgod.

the bookmark i had for them doesn't work. of course he-who-must-not-be-named was holding court over there, so the whole place could have crashed and burned.

i can't help wondering what a $5 stamp could have shipped in 1893. an armoire to england?

my first car was a '54 studebaker with a starter button on the floor under the clutch.

hi, all. it is always such an entertaining scroll.

locks of hair are not all that remain of poor napoleon. (blushing furiously)
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1988719_1988728_1988695,00.html

my 1923 corona has the ¢ symbol and new ribbons for vintage machines can still be bought from the vintage typewriter shoppe online.

my grandfather preferred not to drink bonded whiskey. he said he didn't know them seagrams people so he didn't trust them, but he knew joe cloud made good, clean whiskey.

i deplore reality tv. what is realistic about being followed around by a tv camera?

diane on chevrolets, the check engine light will come on if your gas cap is not locked down correctly. and Always if your service brake system light comes on, check the brake fluid first. standing in front of my truck, the brake fluid receptacle is upper right.

f troop, be still my beating heart. that was one of the funniest things ever on tv. who was the trooper who could not see? and chief wild eagle: 'hekawi not fighters. hekawi lovers.'

hi, y'all. it is always such an interesting and enlightening scroll.

i adore my kindle; i especially love to read while i am driving or doing something else. it has a setting for text to speech and i have the choice of a male or female electronic voice. the electronic voice is not perfect and mispronounces many words, especially abbreviations, but i have learned the code and my brain translates it.

i only have 7 pages of unread books on my kindle, but on my amazon manage your kindle account, i am a hoarder. the number is so high i am ashamed to post it.

and for those of you who don't want to buy a kindle, you can download the kindle cloud (there are pc and apple apps) and read all the kindle free books or any others on your monitor.

diane i am glad to read of your progress.

patsy if this contraption drives down your sidewalk, call animal control. my granddaughter is an african grey and if they had thumbs they would rule the world. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/01/florida-man-builds-mini-car-for-his-pet-parrot/

hello, everyone. stay warm.

has anyone read 'winter of the world'? i keep peeking in, but no one has mentioned it and kindle wants an exorbitant amount ($19.99) and i am so very cheap. the outside the book board reviews have been mediocre, and i was hoping for a review by jim.

i hate the new logo. they spent huge money on that?

i always put 'accidental' bidders on my blocked list. they could have the same accident over and over. from now on, i will also look at what else they bid on.

i, too, resist/dislike change. i thought the eight-track was just fine, if you folded the little piece of cardboard right and wedged it in at the proper angle.

carol(bookdelle) i found your story to be of great interest. i also love it that this remarkable couple named two of their children langston and zora after two of my favorite authors.

evening, y'all.

j. d. robb is one of nora roberts' pseudonyms.

good evening, y'all. i am sorry to read of maureen's passing. she fought a long, lonely fight and this board did a lot to be there for her and lift her spirits and listen and care. rip.

jim, did you buy the 2 year warranty on your kindle? my kindle is antique: 3 years old, and my warranty has expired, but i have been very lucky. did i mention that i carry it around swaddled up like the little baby jesus and never leave it in my truck? this is south florida, where the heat will kill dogs, and kindles.

good evening, y'all.
jim, welcome home. i haven't read a stuart woods in 30 years, and your critique makes me glad i haven't. i will stick with my beloved james lee burke. he may run through wives at an alarming rate, but his plots are strong.

praying for maureen.

mysteryhorse i read constantly, both regular books and kindle books and i believe that kindle books have more typos and skipped words than regular books. when i downloaded 'the picture of dorian grey' the prologue, which contains the wonderful line: 'there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral books. books are well or badly written. that is all.' had been omitted.

my grandmama cooked beet greens as well as every other kind of greens. beet greens are devine.

i got at least 8" of rain from debby and high winds out of the south. i am 15 miles due east of fort myers and slack about emptying my rain gauge during pouring rain. we were still getting bands today, when debby had made landfall, passed over and once again was at sea. i appreciate the fact that she did not spawn any tornadoes and there was no lightning.

wow, jim. congratulations to your niece. it's a lot harder for wimmens. i thank her for her service.

diane, at least you noticed and got her help. good on you.

i rambled on so long i forgot my main thought, which was to thank those of you who served our country. i value my freedom of speech and thank you for protecting it for me.

good evening, y'all. after my scroll, i said a prayer for everyone having health issues. i grimaced about the knee injections since i have a knee that just recently quit being a team player and has taught me not only about knee pain, but also about how hard it is to get along without a functioning pair.

for those of you with a kindle Or with the free kindle app for pcs, macs, or cell phones, two freebies this week are good reads: 'the only witness' (a good first novel which will warm the cockles of any animal lover's heart) and '212' (by alafair burke daughter of james lee burke who is also a former prosecutor and a professor of law at hofstra.)

also, kindle now allows you to lend books, so if anyone wants to read 'the hunger games' trilogy, all i need is an email address. (think george orwell meets logan's run, but they are page-turners.

see how long-winded i am when i don't show up for awhile?

oh, sam, you have my sympathy. one of my dogs, buck, rescues every feral kitten he finds (no matter what age, even if their eyes are just opened) and brings it to me all wet and cold and pitiful. he is a lot like lennie in 'of mice and men'. he means well, but after being carried around for awhile and then put on the ground so he can run around them and show them how cool he is and what a good buddy he will make, they are in much worse shape, and then i have to bottle feed them with him looking anxiously over my shoulder. and he doesn't understand that he is murdering them: he thinks he is saving them after their mothers abandoned them. thank heaven most of the ferals have been caught up and neutered and it hasn't happened for several years. my own badkitty and my friend's kitty, piglet, are his last two 'rescues' and they are 7.

20 mule team borax sprinkled into the carpet, left for a few hours and then vacuumed up is death on fleas with no horrid smell/toxicity. but diatomaceous earth is the bomb; it is just harder to find.

good afternoon, y'all. it is a beautiful day, but too hot outside to do much more than look out a window.

aegbooks - i'm midway through 'catching fire' (the second hunger games book) and in case you thought things couldn't get any worse in district 12, they have.

good evening, y'all.

i forced myself to put down 'the hunger games' and came to check my emails and the boards. isn't that trading one addiction for another? 'the hunger games' is excellent but not at all sweetness and light; it is rather like george orwell meets lisbeth salander.

i read part of scarlette and that was certainly enough. i choose not to read sequels written by different people in different eras. i also choose not to read books written by two people. tolstoy never felt the need to take on a partner. patterson and cussler should have followed his lead.

jim, i so enjoyed your adventures in alaska, having only lived in georgia and then moved farther south to florida.

i've tried several times to stop the elongated url but the html gods are against me today.

the m. louisa locke victorian mysteries are good reads, too. she is a retired women's history professor, and her books are period perfect from button hooks to bustles. a couple have been free for kindle, so those of you who have one, keep an eye out. you can also get a free kindle pc app for your computer.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311

ah, carol, i was a nurse when children under 12 were not allowed, a silly rule that was probably a hold over from when there were no antibiotics. nowadays, the pregnant mother has to have paid up by her 7th month, insurance or not, unless she is covered by some sort of government program. and malpractice suits have forced so many of the brilliant doctors to choose a field other than obstetrics. birthing babies has always been and is Still a chancy business. prissy was right. sometimes everything goes wrong.

jim, i believe that supreme court justices should only make their decisions based on their understanding of the law they have studied for umpteen years. as for the media interpretation, i believe we were better off with the 6 o'clock news, before news was 24/7 but alas the same news 24/7. i want Different news on every broadcast. silly me.

joanne, all the nurses were regular nurses, but there was a nun in charge of each floor. and they were wonderful to patients; they were just hard on the nurses. having been raised methodist and having no experience with nuns, i was expecting various degrees of mother theresa. my fellow nurses, many of whom had been through catholic parochial schools explained to me that no, for the most part This was the way nuns were. one of my buddies said that the reason her ears stuck out was because they had been grabbed so much by the nun who taught her in first grade and another bud would not eat tomato because she had been force fed one by her second grade (nun) teacher. at the hospital where i worked, sister redempta was so mean that she was fired from her floor and evicted from the convent where she lived on hospital grounds. i adored the sister that was over our floor, and kept in touch with her until she died, but i was happy that i was not on sister redempta's floor.

good evening, y'all.

i was a labor and delivery nurse in a (wonderful) catholic hospital run by the sisters of mercy. having been raised methodist, i thought that st. joe would do all kinds of charitable things, but st. joe operated in the black, like no other hospital where i had worked. at the beginning of each hall for 9 floors of 4 wings each was one double occupancy room; all the rest were private. and if you had no insurance, arrangements were made before you were admitted or else you were shipped somewhere else, like savannah freemorial.

all the delivery rooms had bottles of holy water. as a good little methodist, i was horrified of running out and refilled the bottles at the beginning of my shift. if there is holy water in the bottle and you add water, it is all holy water, but if the bottle is empty, the water has to be blessed again.

joanne, the mercy nuns didn't pick a name; they just baptized and then went right on trying to save the baby's life.

you could do a lot worse than 'coming to' with a bunch of mean old nuns around you. they don't like to give up.

good evening, y'all. on my way to downton abbey, and always love the snap. crackle and pop of the different brains and opinions on here.

the wilbur smith 'courtney' novels about the dutch settling south africa? wilbur pays such serious attention to historical detail that i don't care that so many of his novels are dedicated to new wives.

was common?

some southern grammar questions cannot be fixed.

ah, manners.

having been born and raised in a small town in georgia, i had southern manners pounded into me from an early age.

miss lady and mr. man if they were older than you and you did not know their names were common.

flannery o’connor taught me to spell the word oncet, but i had heard it all my life.

jim - the romans used spurs and didn't have stirrups.
http://www.cowboyshowcase.com/spurshistory.htm

as a lifelong horsewoman, i was always amazed at hollywood's portrayal of the cavalry: long lines of horses of every color. the army only bought 2 colors, brown and black.

good evening. always an interesting read here.

jim - i am with you on historical authenticity. if the era is before the invention of the zipper, i want the dresses to lace up. i want the bits in the horses' mouths to be period. i want the guns and the swords to be period.

i bought rutherford's books and started on 'sarum', and it was sort of like a chicken gizzard: it got bigger and bigger the more i chewed and i put it down. i am like that sometimes. it took me 3 tries to read 'the confessions of nat turner' and i still consider it a disappointment. (nothing good must have been written that year) i love ken follett's historical novels; i love michener; and i also love tolstoy. he was writing about his contemporaries but he was telling it like it was. all that worrying about where to send the carriage first and how to bundle up when traveling by train in 'anna karenina', all that information about the russian generals selling the soldiers uniforms and boots and starving the troops: good stuff!

this was sent to me by a very computer savvy friend:

As much as I like to 'Google', they are getting a bit too intrusive for my libertarian sensibilities... In case you hadn't heard, effective March 1, 2012, they are going to be 'tracking' even more of your online activities & sharing the info across all of their products (& who knows where else)...

(Supposedly) You can opt out of this via the steps in the article at:

http://news.yahoo.com/how-to-remove-your-google-web-data-history.html

Stay safe !

good evening, y'all.

what an interesting scroll. i adore downton abbey, although i don't have to listen to the dialog; i am perfectly happy looking at the clothes and sets and vehicles and houses.

i got badkitty as a newborn the day the 7' diameter oak tree fell on my roof and knocked a big hole in it. that was not a good day. she was feral to begin with, her mother was living in the tree and badkitty was chased off the roof by a chainsaw. it all made her a little nuts. the name badkitty stuck because it was dangerous to try to determine if she was a boy or a girl. she only allows the dogs and me to touch her and she won't make eye contact with me. she stares instead at my left hand and rubs on it trying to get it to pet her. i pet my dogs with my left hand to encourage them to walk on my left side since when i lead my horse he is on my right side. (that's the reason dogs were originally taught to heel on the left.) my horse thinks it is great fun to scare the dogs.

i loved the movie horse names. i needed a refresher.

for those of you with kindles, this looks interesting: lendle.

epsom salts other name is magnesium sulfate. it is used to treat pre-ecalmpsia and premature labor. epsom salts is great for everything. drizzle some with your favorite essential oil and sprinkle on carpet before vacuuming to make your house smell delicious.

good afternoon, y'all.

june, i adore greg iles and read all his books as soon as they are published. i can even forgive him his love of faulkner. a couple of his books have recurring characters, but usually they are all new every time.

i am reading a fabulous book that was a kindle freebie. 1929 (jonathon's cross). it is about the wall street crash that sent so many from riches to rags and off of tall buildings. i am fascinated by all history except recent.

good evening, y'all.

bookleaves - i have a young friend whose grandmother got her a kindle fire for christmas. i don't think she got a screen protector. but i remember reading that someone on here got a kindle fire.

good evening, y'all.

patsy - downton abbey is the bomb. i just love it.

i have an antique kindle, 3 years old, from the time before kindle got into a price war with sony and barnes & noble. mine was hideously expensive compared to nowadays, but it has its own built in wi-fi. when amazon started cutting kindle prices, they also started cutting features.

good evening from sunny florida. i am 125 miles northwest of miami and it is 34 degrees outside and the whethermen are threatening the 20s. the price of orange juice and tomatoes just skyrocketed. stay warm, everyone.

maureen - my grandfather was like that. there was the forest, and then there were the trees...

carol - i have read that it was first a play and that the horses were giant marionettes. i found that fascinating. i would love to see the play. it is such an uplifting story.

the level of training put on the horses is unbelievable. none of the horses got hurt but that isn't how it looks. how it looks is horrifying.

how spielberg trained his horses. warning: this contains some major plot spoilers, but i had to know before i could go see it, too.

happy new ear.

friends and i went to see war horse and steven spielberg has simply outdone himself. what a wonderful movie, not just for horse people, but for anyone.

sareader - the more you say about her the better i like her. how totally fearless to go off on a cruise alone. (after the filming of captain blood, errol flynn always referred to olivia de haviland fondly as 'wench'.) i hope your mother isn't hijacked however much she may wish otherwise. i hope she has a wonderful time. 🙂

happy new year and belated merry christmas.

new kindle owners: ain't it the bomb? be sure you subscribe to ereader news today or find it on facebook. it allows you to download 10 or so free books a day; it also has a bargain book of the day, which is supposed to be a really good book, for $2.99 or so, but i haven't tried a bargain book since i have had such good luck with the free ones. of the many, Many people i know with kindles i only know one who doesn't adore it. my kindle is an antique: 3 years old with the on/off switch on the top. my favorite kindle feature, other than changeable font sizes, is the dictionary: you can place the cursor next to a word and the definition pops up on the bottom of the page. i consider that magic.

sareader - i adore your mother's attitude.

http://ereadernewstoday.com/
http://www.ebookfinds.com/
http://mashable.com/2010/12/25/free-kindle-books/

lamb in his bosom by caroline miller is the precursor to gone with the wind, and a wonderful, wonderful book, if you can find it. it is about the 90% of georgians who did not own slaves.

about the turkey: according to this article, the poor turkey wasn't even in the running, and franklin wrote his bird letter to his daughter two years after the eagle had been selected by the seal committee. i love history, with all its intricate twists. i suppose george washington didn't actually chop down the cherry tree, either. 🙂

well, of course we had turkeys. thomas jefferson wanted the wild turkey for the national bird instead of the bald eagle, and i have to agree. as beautiful as it is, the bald eagle is mostly a very fancy looking buzzard.

eileen - hi. tell your sister to check 'e-reader news today' on facebook everyday for free books (usually 3 to 5). you have to download them immediately because tomorrow they won't be free anymore, but it is a great way to pick up new books by new authors.

good afternoon, y'all.

old florida crackers pronounce miami my amah. many people who aren't from florida think the term cracker is derogatory but for the original floridians it is a source of pride. cracker refers to the cow whips the old cowboys carried when cow hunting (rounding up cattle). they can crack them louder than any rifle. florida is still 7th in beef production; 15 years ago it was 2nd.

good afternoon, y'all.

bookleaves - check out facebook. the ereader news gives away 3 to 5 kindle books a day by new authors. i have picked up some great new reads that way. a kindle charge lasts two weeks if you don't use the wi-fi.

i don't watch much tv, either. i don't even have cable. i only have a small tv in the bedroom that i turn on to watch while i knit, or sew or read, but i never just sit there and stare at the tube. i mostly listen to pbs, cbs, and metv. i've gotten two nielson things in the last 3 years, but i also don't like to fill out questionnaires. i spend too much time coloring in the dot or the box perfectly.

good morning, y'all.

i love mayhem on the allstate commercials. and i am angered, offended and confounded by all the viagra, cyalis, and cymbalta commercials with their ghastly side effects. the drug companies are not our friends, but they do have lots of money to buy commercial time.

good morning, y'all.

bookleaves - my kindle requires a reading light for the dark, but it is 3 years old this christmas. i have a nifty clip-on light that i bought from kindle. you can read the kindle out in the brightest sunshine and you cannot do that with the back lit ereaders. a friend has a newer kindle. i'll have to ask her if they have a built in reading light yet.

good afternoon, y'all.

mim - you'll get used to the reduced sodium in no time, especially if your foods are still flavorful. a squeeze of lemon or lime juice is wonderful on a baked potato. here is a list of natural diuretic foods which might help.

bookleaves - i have only downloaded 'mrs. wiggs of the cabbage patch' from gutenberg to my kindle and it was just fine. i downloaded 'the portrait of dorian gray' from kindle's free books and it was missing the prologue, which i consider a very important part. i just read the prologue in a hardback and then switched, but still i was unimpressed that the kindle translators would leave out the part about there being no moral or immoral books. it made me not trust their formatting. 'ulysses' in the free kindle version was wonky, too.

i loved 'sometimes a great notion'. i need to reread it.

good afternoon, y'all.

good luck bulldogs.

carol - interesting about your grandmother's caul/veil. i've heard before that being born with a caul made people psychic. i used to be a delivery room nurse; being born with a caul meant that the amniotic membranes were over the face.

good evening, y'all.

diane - that sounds like a good time. i've read tarot cards off and on all my life. my problem is that i dream things before they happen, and always have. not everything i dream happens of course, so i never know which ones to trust. i guess i am more of a half-a$$ed psychic.

my sister in everything but dna and her family are big believers in psychics, so when one of her favorite aunt and uncles were visiting, she took them to cassadaga, the psychic mecca down here. her uncle read a sign nailed to a telephone pole and declared indignantly 'this ain't a town full of psychics. read that sign." the sign said 'lost dog.'

jim - i hope lsu shows your bulldogs more mercy than they showed my gators.

if any of you get the chance to see it, pbs recently ran a show called 'reel injun' dealing with the portrayal of indians on the silver screen, and who all played them who were not real indians in movies. (iron eyes cody was really italian)

my great great grandmother, mary frances weaver was cherokee and her family hid in the flint river swamp in georgia and did not get herded up under andrew jackson's orders and marched to oklahoma. andy jackson is probably on a very large rotisserie in hell.

good evening, y'all, and happy post thanksgiving. i dutifully started back on atkins, but i fear i have gained back my hard fought 10 pounds.

paula - i am delighted that your dh has found such good employment driving around such an important Daughter. i hope she is not too demanding.

diane - i went to 2 splendid thanksgiving dinners, but neither had cornbread dressing, and i wished for yours.

mainer - i am so sorry for your loss. what a good man he must have been to have been loved by so many and treated so well.

jim - since y'all had dinner on the savannah river, i can only hope that you had cornbread dressing with pecan halves.

bookleaves - thank you for your list. you caused me to make my own.

jeanine - i agree. i can resist anything except temptation. and to quote redd foxx, 'you gonna feel pretty stupid laying up there dying of nothing.'

leftovers are the best part of thanksgiving. i love oysters in dressing, too.

diane - cornbread dressing is my favorite kind. do you put pecan halves in it?

good evening, y'all and happy thanksgiving. i have 2 key lime pound cakes in oven and i am worn out, but i have to go 2 different dinners: one at 1 and one at 6. after that i will be a stuffed turkey, but thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. you cook up your best stuff and eat it with people you love.

and jack weinberg said never trust anyone over 30. apparently he didn't like frontal lobes that were attached. it does make for more argument against stupidity.

and when i was young and dumb and pure muscle galloping racehorses for a living, i still weighed 137 pounds and there was nothing to pinch anywhere. i believe the health nuts should just eat their tofu and leave the rest of us alone.

thanksgiving i get to see my friend mekka. she is samoan, maybe 5', maybe a size 1, and looks like a polynesian goddess. her parents were ashamed of her because she wasn't 7' tall and didn't weigh 600 pounds.

i was in my 9th grade civics class with dear old mr. hannah.

stamphick - once the frontal lobes are attached, the warrior isn't nearly so malleable.

joanne - (chardonnay through the nose hurts.) mine, too.

carol - i know what you'd find. the frontal lobes in the adolescent brain aren't even attached yet. how could they possibly be 'grown up' enough to make adult decisions? alas, 18 is the age that fights our wars.

joanne and diane - i understand. adulthood came very late to me: um, late 30s. my daughter seems to have been born an adult. i'm pretty certain they gave me the wrong baby at the hospital, but i don't happen to care. 🙂

diane - when kids get to be 18, they might not be one bit brighter, but they are considered adults by the government who has no idea. i hope you don't have to go out there to nag him into responsible behavior.

evening, y'all.

diane - your paintings are wonderful.

badkitty only wants a taste of any canned catfood, but she will slurp up all the juice drained from canned tuna or chicken.

joanne - is she the calico in your avatar? beautiful cat.

evening, y'all.

adderbolt - i really look forward to your posts.

diane - seems like if anything would sell, aceos would, at least to me, but this economy really stinks. all my auctions, and all my friends' auctions are dead in the water.

joanne - i think it is the sound. badkitty comes flying if i open a can of corn.

buck is standing on the deck with his paws on the windowsill peering in expectantly, so i guess i better go let him in. after all, it is dark and some of his favorite tv shows to nap to will soon be on.

mim - i hope you feel stronger soon.

evening, y'all.

i love singing. i still do it in the shower, although the way i sound these days can no longer be construed as making a joyful noise. my mother's family sang; especially my great uncles: uncle frank and uncle dick. they were especially fond of 'goodnight irene' and 'the great speckled bird' whenever they got in the sauce, um, medicine.

everything good for you is too bland. it is only the bad stuff that tastes wonderful. vanilla almond milk (comes from vanilla almonds) is not bad; but i think i will steer clear of anything that tastes like grape nuts soaked in it. more of a frosted flakes gal, myownself.

hilarious.

my daughter is on a diet and cannot have regular milk, so she got some almond milk. she described it as tasting like milk someone had eaten all the grape nuts out of. i cannot spell the expression on her face when she described it. i was crying, i was laughing so hard.

mysteryhorse - best wishes and many prayers.

good afternoon. shel silverstein was a genius at children's poetry. he also wrote 'on the cover of the rolling stone.'

listen to the mustn'ts child, listen to the don'ts.
listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
listen to the never haves, then listen close to me.
anything can happen, child, anything can be.

great news, patsy.

good morning, y'all.

mysteryhorse - i am real busy praying right now, and i will be sure to include y'all. two of my good friends' sons were airlifted last night in grave condition following an automobile accident. the driver who pulled out in front of them was killed. the only thing in their favor is that they are 18 and 19.

wellie - true dat. help the most animals you can instead of spending thousands on an animal who will never have 'quality of life.'

i was a nurse for many years, and i can watch with great calm when something awful happens to humans, however it hurts inside, but i cannot watch anything happen to an animal.

patsy - good healing thoughts and prayers on your test.

wellie - oh, how i loved the black stallion books. i even believed that a gigantic arabian could outrun a thoroughbred. later, when i began to work around racehorses, i realized that was poetic license.

i love dick francis. his books are so full of horse lore, as well as being so well thought out.

good afternoon.

joanne, he got the bird, or rather his fiancee bought it for her daughters, and he just paid for it. the terms of his 3 year probation are that he cannot own a dog while he is on it. i agree that people who engage in animal torture on that scale cannot be rehabilitated. he probably also suffers from pyromania and enuresis.

i'm on my third iris johansen while i wait for a box of james lee burkes to get here. finished 'swamplandia!' and it was exquisitely written, but very strange. has anyone else read 'a confederacy of dunces' by john kennedy toole? i am feeling the urge to read it again, but i have read it so many times that i mostly just stare at the pages and recite.

good evening, y'all.

mysteryhorse - my template shows up when i go to sell next to my ebay. congrats on your auction.

diane - my family came from the jesup, patterson, waycross area. jesup was 70 miles south of savannah, and when we went to the 'big city' that was where we went.

good evening, y'all.

gosh. miss a day or two and all kinds of interesting things show up here.

"who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? the shadow knows"

my horse is furious about the time change. i came home last night at the same time but it was dark and he had nearly starved to death since breakfast. talk about a withering look.

i enjoyed the grisham interview. i think he interviews very well, but i agree with diane about his and cornwell's novels running out of steam after the first 3 or 4; ken follett doesn't seem to have that problem and neither does james lee burke.

also interesting about coxes swamp. in the 70s when i was still in savannah, they filmed a for tv movie starring dennis weaver about dr. samuel a. mudd. part of the filming was done on monterey square in front of mercer house owned then by the infamous jim williams. they covered the pavers with red clay for the filming. jim was happy for his house to be used as a backdrop and asked only that the producers make a donation to the historic savannah foundation. when they didn't, he hung a huge and anachronistic nazi flag over his balcony for several days until the movie people relented.

a friend's maiden great aunt got involved in genealogy many years ago and researched the family back to the first illegitimate birth and was so horrified she quit, and that was the end of research for that family.

firefox has so fewer inherent problems than ie. everyone should at least have both, against the day when one of them decides not to work. (it's free)

i didn't know kacey, but i am sorry for her family and i am sorry y'all have lost a friend.

wellie - my fearless horse gets absolutely crazy if there's a bot fly around. he starts bucking and kicking in all directions and pays little attention to who might be around besides the bot fly. horse flies don't bring that reaction, and all the bot fly wants to do is lay eggs.

good afternoon.

jim - excellent pictures. it looks like a wonderful vacation.

kathleen - ah, viet nam: the war that took so many of the people i loved. i have not read a bright shining lie, but know by its title that i will. of my friends who came back, the ones who could talk about it told horrifying stories; many couldn't talk about it at all. i have read matterhorn by karl marlentes, and it reopened wounds i thought had long since scarred over.

rose - wonderful pictures. my daughter got her first horse when she was 3. i still have all the ribbons and trophies.

my all time favorite scary movie is silence of the lambs, but nightmare on elm street is pretty scary, too.

jack, i live in the land of which you speak. from october to june, my county, lee, and neighboring county, collier, are the ones producing the styrofoam bombproof tomatoes. i am 40 miles from immokalee, and everything your article says is true. i buy my tomatoes from the ritchey family: one brother grows big fat juicy (different sized) beefsteak tomatoes organically, other brothers grow corn and peppers, and their vegetables are not cheap, but they are delicious and real. 20 years ago, i watched a 60 minutes morely safer interview of a woman who was defending keeping illegals practically prisoner and taking their wages for various 'costs' they had run up. i remember what cold blue eyes she had. a few years later i met her because her son was in my daughter's kindergarten class. some of the blame has to be shouldered by the fast food joints. mcdonald's gets picketed regularly by the coalition of immokalee workers for low tomato prices. and some of the blame has to be shouldered by the field bosses, also largely illegal and preying on their countrymen. and some of the blame falls on the victims: the poor mexicans and guatemalens who walked all the way here for a better life and are willing to do anything. alas, the longer they live here, the more skillful they become at milking florida's already tottering health care and welfare systems.

and i am sorry to report that i will have to kick tomatoland to the top of my books to buy list, ahead of 1q84 and stones from the river.

thank you for the book review.