BITS AND PIECES

Instead of a Rant:  I'll just repeat two quotes that's been trending on the internet these last few days -- "A shutdown falls on the President's lack of leadership.  He can't even control his party and get people together in a room.  A shutdown means the President is weak." -- Donald J. Trump, 2013  And, "The problems start from the top and have to get solved from the top.  The President is the leader, and he's got to get everybody together in a room and he's got to lead."  -- ditto

Books I Finished This Week:  Three collections by Joe Lansdale -- Hap and Leonard, Trapped in the Saturday Matinee, and Hap and Leonard:  Blood and Lemonade (the last being what Lansdale called a "mosaic novel;" two lesser books by Edgar Rice Burroughs -- Minidoka, 937th Earl of One Mile M (a children's fantasy a la Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum, the earliest completed story by Burroughs and evidently based on bedtime stories he used to tell) and You Lucky Girl! (a three-act play written for, but never performed by his daughter Joan; the only full dramatic play he ever wrote); The Beetle Horde by Victor Rousseau (early SF and my FFB this week; this one was the very first story (and serial) published in Astounding Stories; Jon Rivera & Gerard Way's Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye, Vol. 1:  Going Underground (a graphic novel featuring underutilized DC characters, mainly Cave Carson and Wild Dog); and Doogie Horton's A Very Die Hard Christmas (a retelling of the film as "The Night Before Christmas").  I'll admit I'm ashamed to include the last one as a book, but it is what it is.  I'm currently reading Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, even though she spells her first name wrong.

Porn Actresses Are Dying:  Five in the past ten weeks -- accident, overdose, suicide, and unstated causes.  It's one of those things that's coincidence, not conspiracy, BUT...  Well, there's your plot for that mystery novel you've always wanted to write.

Two IUDs:  They were detonated yesterday in a Florida mall about 30 miles from Tampa.  No one was injured, of course.  Police are looking for a very confused man who believes people actually go to malls nowadays.

Millie Bobby Brown:  She caused a bit of a stir at the SAG Awards when she appeared wearing white Converse sneakers because she wanted to dance after the ceremony.  The 13-year-old actress also has a boyfriend, to which Judge Roy Moore could only say, "Dang!"

Speaking of Show Biz:  Transformers:  The Last Knight is the "worst of the worst" films nominated for this year's Razzies.  Somehow, I suspected all along that there will be no surprises when the winners are announced.  Also up[ for a Razzie are Fifty Shades Darker, The Mummy, Baywatch, and The Emoji Movie.  Actors nominated are Mark Wahlberg, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Jamie Dorman, and Zac Ephron.  In the actress category:  Tyler Perry (that's correct), Katherine Heigl, Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Watson.  Among the nominations are "Any combination of two human, two robots or two explosions" in Transformers:  The Last Knight.  And you wonder why I don't go to the theater any more.

This Will Probably Lose Me Most of the Few Followers This Blog Has:  Go Patriots!

This Week in Florida Man:  "Drunk Driver Gets Areested after Mistaking a Bank Drive-Thru as a Taco Bell"  Florida Man, this time 28-year-old Douglas Francisco, also passed out at the wheel of his car, blocking access to the ATM.  When arrested, he apparently "made several statements that were differing with reality."  Florida Man, for keeping alive the tradition of stupidity and weirdness inn the state, we salute you!