Robert B. Parker, the prolific Boston novelist who singlehandedly revived the hardboiled detective genre in the 1970s with his bestselling Spenser series, died at his desk yesterday, at the age of 77.

I was introduced to Spenser through the 1980s TV show Spenser: For Hire, starring the late Robert Urich as the title character and Avery Brooks as ( Read more... )

Wow... time to dust this mother off. Facebook is so addictive! At least here I won't have to read about yet another lost baby moose in Roller Coaster Kingdom and who fertilized who's crops in FarmVille ( Read more... )

Two deaths today, both of which touch me far more deeply than all the hoopla surrounding Wacko Jacko, Farrah Fawcett, Ted Kennedy, and Patrick Swayze.

Henry Gibson, the diminutive actor best known for being part of the ensemble on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In died today at age 73 (a week before his 74th birthday). He also had a memorable role in The ( Read more... )

• Spent most of last night on my knees re-stickering hundreds of copies of The Lost Symbol because some hoople-head put 30% stickers on them when they should have been 40% off. FML.
• Never listen to Philip Glass while driving or operating heavy machinery. Just don't.
• New B&N Recommends: The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School; An Abundance of ( Read more... )

Years ago when I first started working for Barnes & Noble, we used to do staff recommendations, and people came up with some really good stuff. At some point, Corporate decided that we would no longer discount staff recs 20% off, and enthusiasm for recommending and displaying them quickly plummeted. At least locally, we've tried to revive it a few ( Read more... )

...and Daniel Yergin, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his epic-length history of the oil industry, The Prize, blogs about it at BN.com.

On the 150th Anniversary of the Oil Industry

August 28th, 1859, "Colonel" Edwin Drake's well in Titusville, PA successfully struck oil.

I, of course, used this as a shameless opportunity to kiss the guy's ass... I ( Read more... )

Shout! Factory just released a three-disc set of The Secret Policeman's Balls, the famous Amnesty International benefit concerts from the '70s and '80s featuring members of Monty Python and Beyond the Fringe (among others). I'd never heard of these before, except passing references to the Pythons having participated, so I quickly snatched this up ( Read more... )

Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)...

That Creepy Guy (NLBM)

Normal Liberal Beta Male


( Read more... )

Everything's behind the cut, because I'm a nice guy like that. ;-)

( review below the cut )

1999 Toyota Camry LE 4-cylinder with 161,000 miles. Looks like it just came out of the factory. I take possession of it in approximately ten hours.


( Read more... )