Smart.

Google is releasing The Next Big Thing, called "Glass."

The idea of wearable computers has been around for a while, but no one has really fielded a worthwhile model. (Oh, I know that Apple tried it, but this is completely different.)

IF this works (and eventually, someone will get it right), this will be a bigger deal than broadband was to the Internet.

Google is thus far kind of hit or miss on some new apps, and their branded hardware has never set a benchmark, to my knowledge. But this is a new device that hasn't really been fielded before, and their marketing strategy is pretty smart.

See, you have to apply to get the right to pay $1500 for one, right now. That will of course change, later, but right now, your price of admission is a grand and a half, and an application that includes an essay, and perhaps a video.

Why? Because genius, that's why.

They're beta testing. You want your beta testers to be invested in the product, or they'll put it down without input.They must have some confidence in it, to be trying this. But maybe some design guy sold it to marketing with:
"Hey, we can't fail! We get to claim that we're beta-testing, not generally releasing the product, and each enduser is paying us to do the research. Worst case scenario is that it's back to the drawing board. Best case: we send a service pack module upgrade, and proceed with production as is."


The weak point isn't going to be the shaky video; it's going to be in the speech recognition. It needs to NOT fire off some app, just because you left it on while walking through a noisy crowd, or while watching a movie.To quote my friend Ed: "You know it's only a matter of time before people start using Google Glass to make their own pornos."
He's probably right, but there have been wearable cameras for a long time. I think that it's the integration that will be the big deal. Google is pretty good at taking existing technology, and integrating it. Look at the excellent job that they did with Google Maps integrating with their search engine, with their one-of-a-kind StreetView, and their superb Earth. (You haven't downloaded Google Earth to your machine? I don't even know you, anymore.)
 
Some worry that it moves us a little further down the slippery slope of not having to interact with human beings around us. I submit that it will pull our heads up. Right now, when I want to interact with the Internet, I sit down and face a computer screen, in a corner. I am effectively sequestering myself from the world.  Something like this could permit the easy give and take of data, while out and about.

In a year, we'll know if this one took or not.  Given the proliferation of 4G smart phones out there (with which it will pair), I reckon that it's got a fighting chance. Eventually, someone will get us there.

Fangurl.

"Do you know what today is?" asked my elder daughter.

"Uh, not really, beyond that it's 21 Feb 2013," I responded. "And a Thursday."

"No, it's more than that," she responded with teenaged smugness.

She took out a marker and a sheet of paper, and explained thusly.

So what's a father to do? Beam with pride? Deny paternity?

Among that which we applaud.

My old partner and I used to laugh a lot, listening to some Professor Elemental.

I had thought that we'd seen the last of that chap, though, until Jennifer tonight pointed out that the witty gentleman parody retro chap-hopper had just now produced this:

The end is the very best part. Seriously.

Haw.

New Year. 2013

--You get that we can't do this better than they can, right? First we'd have to build a half-mile-tall building....

--I was driving an ambulance when the new year rolled in.

--My 10-year-old was at her best friend's house as the new year turned over. She said that they were dancing non-stop, mostly to Madonna. My wife was certainly glad that they went over to her best friend's house for that.

--We had our annual black eyed peas for New Years Day, in the form of  "Skippin' Jenny."  I've eaten this for years and never called it "Hoppin' John" nor "Skippin' Jenny." We also had cabbage. We didn't do that as a kid.

--I'm not in the least superstitious. But I like black eyed peas stewed with meaty pork bone, served over rice with greens. And I enjoy the tradition. So what harm?

--I ran a lot of calls, and overslept at the fire station.

--I did a lot of laundry, both at the fire house and at home, on New Year's Day.

--While I was on duty at the fire house, my daughter took down the tree and decorations. I had only to put them up into the attic when I got home. It feels very liberating.

--My younger daughter got an art set, which markers smell (respectively) like: honeysuckle, green apple, pine trees, marshmallows, "sea breeze", vanilla, cherry, berry, orange, spices, and lemons. Do we really want to be encouraging kids to be sniffing markers?

--I'm having more trouble than I thought, securing the right tree to put into my father's yard. Apparently 2012 was a bad year for pecans, and everyone bought up the good stock.

--It's been a bumper crop for the pecan nuts, though. Last night my daughters and wife and I shelled enough pecans to fill two and a half gallon bags with pure nut meat. That's about 9 pounds of meat, which we got out of our yard (from our neihbors' trees), all in one night, while watching a movie.

--I was surprised at how into the movie Taken my wife and kids were. Huh. A shoot-em-up, beat-'em-up thriller, with Liam Neeson (a personal favorite of my wife's) in it. There was even a moral in it for my daughters: Do what your Daddy says. Don't lie to your father. We all gave it thumbs up.

--Even with the chartered jet and knowledge of Paris, Liam Neeson's character seems to get a lot done in 96 hours. Apparently, he does so without sleep.  Then, after killing all the Albanians and all the Middle Easterners  in Paris, and after shooting the wife of one of the major deputy chiefs of the French spy syndicate, he takes his daughter and gets onto a flight to come back home. (Charter, again, I suppose.)

--I had half a fruit tart (a spoonfull is in the picture at upper left of the link) at La Madeleine French Bakery and Cafe yesterday. I also had half of blackberry and cream cheese croissant fresh out of the oven. This stuff is bring you to your knees good. Cheap, too, considering that I ate it while getting refills of coffee and complimentary fresh bread and butter. Those guys have a hell of a business model.

--I'm retiring cases from 2012. I had a lot of criminal cases to work on, and did very little traffic last month.

--I'm a complete sucker for those year-in-retrospective shows that come on about this time every year. I may write one for Better And Better.

Random thoughts: For my entertainment.

-- We got a SodaStream for Christmas. As a guy who loves soda water, this thing is awesome, so far. But I've not yet gone though the canister swap, which is reported to be just like swapping your propane canister for your gas grill. It takes about 10 seconds to turn a litre of fresh water into soda. The flavorings are actually really good (The sugar-free grapefruit is fantastic.). I've enjoyed having very carbonated soda water for rickeys and my now-world-famous holiday bourbon sour.

--We've been watching Sherlock on NetFlicks. I have to say: It doesn't suck. Give it a shot.

--Two nights ago, we saw the first (of THREE!) installment of The Hobbit. We liked it, even though we thought that two would have been enough for the book. The battle scenes were over-wrought (there's one scene where the dwarves are "suddenly" captured by goblins, which takes longer than it would take to load and fire and reload a muzzleloader cannon. In the dark. In the rain. "Suddenly", my hind foot.).  We liked it. But then, my wife is big on Tolkien, I like it, and my kids like the movies a LOT (elder daughter's ready to plunge headlong into the books.).

--We noticed, about halfway through, that Martin Freeman, the actor who plays Bilbo, is also the actor who plays Dr. John Watson on Sherlock. That guy's a good actor.

--My wife seems to have a bit of a crush on the little guy. I'm okay with that.

--My wife needs to remember my easygoing reception to such things, the next time I'm paying rapt attention to Christina Hendricks, or Kate Winslet.

--My step-mother put on a hell of a feed on our (observed) Christmas. I couldn't name all the items presented, but my favorites were roasted sweet pecans and roasted salty pecans (separate dishes), ham rolls, deviled eggs, queso dip with chips, Scottish shortbread biscuits, really good eggnog, and shrimp. Seriously, I'm not referencing half of it. Good company.

--I had planned to plant a good-sized hardwood at their place on the southwest side of the house to provide attractive shade. The snow on the ground made this unfeasible. Next week.

--We had a white Christmas for only the fourth time in my life. 4" of good snow, and a hard freeze to make it stick. Pretty to look at, but I had to work in it, and that gale blowing it in was a bit bracing.

--I find that I load myself a little heavier when going to a movie, nowdays. Not a lot, but instead of just a reload, I've got a BUG and a reload. I don't over-react, but then again, I didn't whine when my kids picked seats in the upper corner behind the wall overlooking the exit ramp, either. (Kids pick seats while Daddy buys popcorn, now.)

--How long until we have a BlueTooth or WiFi-enabled set of movie glasses with HUD with closed captioning for the hearing impaired? We have the technology. I'm ready for it. I couldn't understand half the dialogue the other night. We always have CC on at the house. It's a lot better than it used to be.

--I realize that, with my talk of food and drink, I sound like Joe the Fat Boy from Dickens' Pickwick Papers. Though I don't (yet) suffer from Pickwickian syndrome, I do work nights, and I did drift off several times during the opening of the presents on Christmas day.

Commemoration.

Sul Ross State University's most beloved late alum's birthday is today.
Reportedly, Dan Blocker was a pretty good educator, before he found that the paychecks for acting were better. He would have been 84 today.

"The Obligatory Cow Reference."

I had forgotten how well Stingray had written up a certain humorous-and-yet-tense moment, a couple of years ago, at Blogorado.

I just read it again, and laughed for a minute straight.

Band nerds.

I wasn't a band kid. My daughter is. I probably wouldn't have watched this video if I weren't a band dad.

Holy. Crap.

Even I knew that the Ohio State marching band is teh awesome. They're famous for their flamboyant drum major leading the band in their perennial "Script Ohio" number.

But this was something else. Apparently, the theme was simply Video Games.

Some of these games I didn't play (Halo, for instance). But I played me some Space Invaders, and Nintendo Super Mario Brothers, and Tetris, and even some PacMan. I didn't even get what the homage was to, when they showed a running, then rearing horse. But if you refuse to watch the entire 9 minute video, AT LEAST go to the 6:00 mark, and watch that. I promise you that you'll watch the rest.

 

Pretty cool.

Wallets out, please.

Who cares that it's to support a cause to cure a disease that will statistically strike some men that you know?!?

We are talking salacious content by some of your sexiest bloggers, and you can make this happen.

At any get-together of bloggers over the last few years, it's been hard to miss that Mike and Jennifer are very fit.

And this last year or so, that Stingray has been hitting it HARD on the Crossfit.

And that Jay G has over the last couple of years turned very lean.

Comes now the horse race at the end of this month of Kilted To Kick Cancer, and we've got Stingray promising to wax his tender nethers, and if he gets enough donations, he'll introduce his newly-hairless promised land to Jay, with video documentation for your sordid entertainment.*

We've got Evyl Robot's wife Jennifer promising to put on a PVC catsuit, and video it for your pleasure. I don't mind saying that I put in a second donation for E.R., simply on that basis alone. I don't think that I'm being too forward when I tell you simply this: You want this to happen. This Internet will be a better place for it. 

Then, Evyl Robot promises to get into drag if he wins, and frankly, this guy is pretty damned hetero, so it will be awkward. However, as I mentioned, he's really fit, so he'll probably rock a nice little black dress, or even a little cotton gingham number.

Jay G will not only shave his moustache, but he'll provide naughty poses in kilt upon demand. Honestly, he's just half a bottle of spiced rum away from anything you'd suggest. Ask me how I know this.**

Donate to Jay.
Donate to Mike (with Jennifer in support.)
Donate to Stingray.
Oh, and if you want to make a healthy medic from Louisiana happy, donate to Ambulance Driver.
__________________________________________
*And, likely, for the use of Colorado law enforcement.
**I really should write up that weekend in St. Louis in April.

Test patterns

Remember them? I can't recall the last time that I saw one broadcast. My wife and I were trying to explain them to our kids, who didn't understand why the broadcast companies would fail to broadcast content overnight. We tried to explain that people just didn't think that it was worth it. But then, again, wouldn't it cost the broadcaster as much to send out a signal of a test card as of a back episode of the Late, Late Show?  Must get a weigh-in from Roberta X.

We were explaining to the girls the traditional sign-off, which would explain some details about the station, explain when they would come back on the air, and then usually would play the national anthem with either an eagle flying, a flag flying, a fighter jet flying, or all of the above.  I admitted that, on most occasions, I was incapable of resisting the urge to stand and place my hand over my heart during the national anthem portion of the sign-off. My family exchanged that look that says, "Yeah, that's Matt/Daddy, all right."

I refuse to be embarrassed.

So, when did you see your last broadcast test pattern and sign-off?

Thursday afternoon thoughts.

--Why is the ATF SWAT team responding to a cop shooting at Virginia Tech? That's a local crime.

-- I'm surprised that I've only seen 29 of these 100 so-called cult movies. And some of them seem strange for "cult movies." Piranha? (saw it in the theatre as a kid) Superstar? Really? (Never saw it. Am I missing something?) How many have y'all seen? You'd be amazed at the gaps in my moviewatching history.

--Folks are worked up about the fires in the Chevy Volt electric that sometimes occur from the batteries a week or two after a major crash. This is worse than a gasoline-powered cars why, exactly? I've been to some humdingers of some fires after petrol-powered autos cracked up, and sometimes the driver have had trouble getting out* after the wreck.

--I was chatting with Stingray and Vine the other evening, and we agree that this is one of the best examples of the "mashup" genre of music that we've ever seen. As I've mentioned, Joan Jett was an early love of mine, and this "fanfaroff" guy (if he's the producer of the mashup) does a nice job of matching the hooks of some popular music. I can't figure in the RATM contribution in the bit, though.

--Appropos of nothing, what kind of computer is that with the faux wood cabinet used by the Eurythmics at 1:05 of this mashup vidjo, right after it is declared that it's Hammer Time?

--My geeky friend Susan (whose daddy really was a rocket scientist in the 50's and 60's, when they got to do cool stuff) pointed out this T-shirt as one she'd like to wear every seven years. I pointed out that someone who wore such a shirt had best know the ins and outs of what it entailed, and pointed her to this informative short documentary.

--That fanfaroff guy really does seem to have something.

______________________________________
*No, not because "the seat belt trapped them." Usually it was because of injuries sustained in the wreck, which a seat belt would have helped to prevent, along with doors and windows failing to open after the wreck.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

--The Brit sailors on the HMS Ocean have a pretty funny Christmas schtick. The ending was actually pretty good.

--A ship named Ocean seems kind of odd. Like naming a car the "Highway," or "Road." Well, there was the "El Camino," but at least we jazzed it up with a Spanish name.

--Former Chicago governor Rod Blagojevich just got 14 years. Given that he has to serve at least 85% of that, he'll be in federal prison for at minimum just shy of 12 years. He did a great job during sentencing of making himself look like someone to feel sympathy for. He acted like he didn't know that it was wrong. He pointed out that his family would suffer, and his kids-- "It's not like their name is Smith." I mean come on, think of them, wouldja? All this to distract from the fact that the former Governor tried to auction off 1% of our nation's Senate, and get himself a Cabinet seat in the process. There's a reason why people have zero faith in their government in and around our nation's third most populous city. When you catch a fish that big in your corruption net, you don't throw him back. He should have gotten still more.

--Chicago's often called "Second City," so I had to look it up to see how it ranked in population. (I'll bet that the population density is a lot higher in Chicago than in sprawling Los Angeles.) Look at the changes in ranked cities from 2000 to 2010, and you see some trends. Houston (still #4) increased in population by 19.8%. Phoenix: 34%. San Antonio: up 22%. Charlotte: +36.6%. Las Vegas rose from the 63rd largest city to 30th, garnering 85% more population in ten years. Tuscon (+20%), Fresno (+20%), Colorado Springs (+28%), and Arlington, TX (+27%). Most are in the south. Most (with the exception of Charlotte, NC and perhaps Colorado Springs) are big gathering places of Hispanic populations.  People seem to be fleeing a lot of the colder older population centers (Philadelphia -4.3%, Detroit -7.5%, Baltimore -11.5%, Milwaukee -11.5%, Cleveland -5.4%.).

--Rick Perry doesn't seem to realize that he's been written off. He's not yet quite as irrelevant as Michelle Bachman, but he's running a close second. I've never understood the silliness of a candidate looking into the camera, and after having delivered a 27 second spot himself, saying "I approve of this message."  Well no pshit, Sherlock. You just said it. The line wasn't completely pointless when it was uttered after an actor had made a campaign advert for the candidate. But when the candidate gives the advert himself, and then utters it, it makes him sound like either he's dumb, or he thinks that you are. Oh, and for what it's worth, Rick? Your religion wasn't your big selling point before.
--I wish that sex had as much to do with my straight marriage as RINO presidential candidates seem to think that it has to do with gay ones.

--I got re-measured for bunker gear this evening. Maybe someone didn't believe the measurements. Given what they're about to spend on the gear, maybe I'd measure twice, too, before ordering. This stuff is off the hook.

--They're kinda touchy about firepeople being armed, for some reason. I assume that I wasn't considered to be on duty while getting fitted.

--We had a brief discussion about how I felt about split duties. I was fine with it. I get the concept of Area Of Responsibility quite well, actually.

--If you're 23, and you've been drinking, and you've got warrants, having a 16 year old in your pickup at 2:00AM isn't helping your case any. I'm just saying.




--

Tuesday Afternoon Random Thoughts

• --If you're going to try to kill yourself, don't do it in a way that will take out people that you've never met before, such as driving the wrong way down the highway.  And if your car's been involved in a minor accident on a highway, do everything you can to stop that minor accident from becoming a major accident. Get your hazard lights on immediately. Get the vehicle well off the road. Don't stand in traffic or between vehicles if you're on the side of the road. Recognize that just because you can see the cars, they don't necessarily see you.
• --I wonder if that guy Brooks is going to be regretful of giving a full interview to the Fort Worth Star Telegram later, once lawyers are involved. I hope not; he's a victim in this.
• --Active gunwriter and retired Texas lawman Jim Wilson (a longtime friend of my father's) was collecting input from people's experiences with full-length guide rods, to include in a piece that he was writing for Shooting Illustrated's blog.  I sent him a link to my thoughts on the subject, written... can it be three years ago, now?!? I think he'd pretty much finished his post before he saw my post, though. :)
• --Speaking of gun stuff, I've yet to ask my .32-obsessed friend if she's played with any of the new Buffalo Bore .327 Federal loads, yet. Given the sectional density and the velocity, that load actually has some promise. Sadly, most don't seem to appreciate this interesting concept, writing it off as "just another .32."
• --I wonder if the pressures are low enough for a 6-shot airweight J-frame in .327 Federal? There's room enough for 6 rounds of .32 H&R Mag, but I wonder if the chamber walls are too thin at the .327 pressures? Increasing your capacity by 20% would certainly create a viable argument for the round. Come to think of it, I'd be in the market. Carry with the .327 rounds in it, shoot matches with .32 S&W Longs in it. Carry in my existing J Frame holsters.
• --I just got off the phone with a DA who, along with me, cannot understand what would be going through the mind of a person who would take a solid DWI case to court, when there's good video of the infractions leading to the stop, good video of the roadside investigation, and a warrant issued for the driver's blood, with high BAC results. Generally, the rule is, "If she bleeds, she pleads."If I were such a driver, I'd be afraid of a year in jail, in a jury trial.  You just never know.
• --Due to a portable greenhouse that my wife erected over a garden plot in our yard, we've got good-sized tomatoes ripening on the vine, despite a couple of hard frosts that we've had here. We just brought in the squash and okra and zucchini that was outside of the greenhouse. Their time is done.
• --My daughter has a rabbit, now, for FFA. As it is a "show rabbit," it came with a lineage printed out. Don't think that didn't cost me.
• --Until the outside hutch is built, the rabbit is in an indoor cage, with a slide-out tray with kitty litter in it. This is in direct violation of the "no litter boxes in my house" rule. That hutch needs to go up, in a hurry.
• --If you're keeping track at home, that means that the G household now has: Three chickens scratching (only one laying), two cats a-lounging, one rabbit pooping, and a five year-old goldfish named Alice.
• --I just got fitted yesterday for bunker gear, and now have a shiny new pager. We'll see how this goes.
• --I went to a class yesterday put on by a prosecutor on juvenile legal procedure. I wish all such in-service classes were as genuinely useful to my job as this one was.
• --I also wish that haters of the criminal justice system could have seen that room full of professional men and women of various corners of the CJS, who all were trying to get it right, rather than just to get the conviction. The prosecutors talked a lot about fairness, and giving the juvenile offenders their due rights, and the cops nodded to that, a lot. But the stereotype persists, of the cop who cares about nothing more than the arrest and the prosecutor who cares about nothing more than the conviction. I don't think that I saw anything out of the ordinary, but it's not talked about a lot.
• --I watched the live-action version of my childhood favorite cartoon Star Blazers on YouTube the other night. When I first had heard of the Japanese live-action movie Space Battleship Yamato, I was excited. They have no plans of making an American version, and are contractually forbidden from dubbing it into English. So subtitles in English are as good as you'll get. Derek Wildstar Susumu Kodai is cast as darker than the American take of the cartoon. Nova Yuki Mori is at the same time less the token female (she's a fighter pilot), and more so (she's predictably Kodai's love interest) in this version. There's some cheesey stuff going on there. For all that, I liked it, and my wife caught me walking around humming or even singing the old theme to Star Blazers, which was used throughout this movie.  (The music, not the words. And Steven Tyler of Aerosmith did the closing theme. Odd.)

What beer with crow?

I, uh, may need to eat some words, here.

Recall that I thought that it was really dumb to make a re-do of True Grit with The Big Lebowski Jeff Bridges? How I mentioned that the original movie was a stand-alone great? That it didn't need improving on?

Maybe so.

But when I went to see the flick on Christmas afternoon with my mother, we found that the Cohen brothers had done it.

And I know that the poster shows Jeff Bridges (Rooster Cogburn), Matt Damon (Ranger LeBoeuf), and Josh Brolin (Tom Chaney) as the leads, but don't you believe it for a second. Hailee Steinfeld steals the show, in her depiction of the sharp-tongued 14 year old Mattie Ross (from near Dardanell in Yell County).

It's worth seeing at the theatre. Go to one with a good sound system-- the sound is good. When Lucky Ned Pepper sees Rooster through a spy glass fire his pistol to signal that he's crossing a bald spot over a ridge, we see the shot, and second or two later hear the muffled report. When Rooster clambers down the pit to rescue Mattie, and fires off a couple of rounds at rattlesnakes, you hear the distinctive report of a black powder gun, echoing in a rocky, dirty pit. Before Mattie gets to the stream to get water to clean, you hear it as she approaches it. These little things make the movie better.

Damned Cohen brothers. Did it again.

Remember, folks:

"Time Out!" only works for kids' games.

Isn't it always a pleasure...

...when you found out that your new friend is not just a pretty face?

Jennifer puts an entire industry in its place with a few choice words.

Can't eat just one...

Once I get started watching those little National Geographic shorts, my next hour is wrecked.

For example, just TRY not to watch this video of an Andean species of bird that vibrates its feathers at 1500 hertz, playing a note like a violin.

Or this, the barrel eye fish, which has a see-through head, like a cockpit canopy.

Or this jaguar catching a young crocodile.

I could watch this stuff all night. . . .

Because I'm a geek,

I'll link you here to the climax of a great movie, which was only the SECOND show that I saw this week, involving a main character named "Pris," and which involved rogue androids being hunted and killed.*

The other one was a series, and something of a guilty pleasure from when I used to room with another geek, in my twenties. Of course it was anime.

Well, that's out of my system.

Moving on.



_____________________________
* If you're not worried about cybernetic critters rising up and killing people in the future, then you don't know Dick.

"When's the show going to start?"

In October of 1989, I went to see the Rolling Stones at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. At the time, I thought that I had better see them while I could, because they were so old, they might quit making music any day now. Heh. What did I know?

We had been caught in very heavy traffic getting there, and arrived about 45 minutes late. That turned out to be just fine, because the guys opening for them were just wrapping up their set with their biggest hit. They ran a little long with their guitar solos, and the repetition of the title line of the song, stretching their last piece to about 9 or 10 minutes. My best friend and I rolled our eyes a little, waiting to see Mick, Keith, and the rest do that voodoo that they do so well.

The rest of the 60k+ crowd lit up. A pair of lesbians near us made out. For country boys from the sticks, this was a bigger spectacle than a goat-ropin' at the county fair, to be sure.

When Living Colour left the stage, we were mighty pleased. And with good reason. The Stones put on the best show I've ever seen, before or since. A friend said, "Mick could have had every person in that stadium, woman or man."

Well. I don't know about that. But the show was awesome, and I still have the T-shirt.

But it's kind of a shame that I didn't get how telling the lyrics to Living Colour's biggest hit song were. Because frankly, it could be our current President's theme music.



Neon lights, a Nobel prize
When the mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You won't have to follow me
Only you can set me free.
I sell the things you need to be.
I'm the smiling face on your TV.
I'm the cult of personality.
I exploit you, still you love me.
I tell you one and one makes three. I'm the cult of personality.

Late to the party. Again.

You ever had friends reference a book as being great, and you nod, knowing that you SHOULD have read it, but can't quite admit that you haven't? You're agreeing that it probably is good, because people you know and trust have said so, but you're not saying "Yes, I read it." That would be dishonest.

But still, you don't want to openly admit that you're among the unwashed who hasn't yet read this classic.

Maybe I'm the only one.

Anyway, I've been acquainted with Larry Correia for about 7 or 8 years. I wear shirts that he designed and distributed for The Firing Line staff (Larry had actually joined the site months before I did). We've been staff members together on The High Road.

Larry's an interesting guy. Big. Really big. Portuguese descent, lives in Utah, is an accountant who put himself through college the hard way. He also, I believe I've mentioned, started up FBMG, a fun little shop that sells any kind of firearm that can be had. No, not just those-- ANY kind. They have a bit of fun out there in the high desert.

Well Larry's latest iteration of self is that he's a writer.

A writer who discusses the practical extermination of monsters.

Vampires? Sure thing. Three kinds, and thanks for asking.
Werewolves? First shake out of the box.
Zombies. Wights. Gargoyles. Golems. All are slain in Larry's first novel.

Slain with shotguns, pistols, rifles, Gurkha knives, flamethrowers, and RPGs.

For every one of you out there who's sick and tired of the Twilight series taking over everything, this is your vindication. In Larry's book, vampires are killed by the good guys, because they are dangerous, predatory, and evil. (Seems like there's a moral in there, somewhere.)

Most of you reading this already know very well that I'm talking about Monster Hunter International, the critically-acclaimed book by Larry Correia that was released by Baen books back on July 28th, 2009.

Larry writes about what he knows. He knows about being a giant in a small man's world (right there with you, pal). He knows about being an accountant who has "other skills." He knows about guns. He knows about having to deal with a big government that he doesn't have a whole lot of respect for. And you gather that he's always known, down deep, that there's something less-talked about, which lurks beneath the concrete surface of reality as we know it.

I'm ashamed of the fact that I hadn't yet read it, even though I had been around to read some of his early drafts before he sent them off-- even before Kathy Jackson proofed them.

I meant to. But I wanted to have my copy inscribed by Larry, himself.

So it was with great pleasure this Christmas, when I got a nice package from FarmGirl and FarmMom, with cookies... and a copy of M.H.I that had been personally dedicated to me by Larry Correia, with his logo above his signature. What a delightful and thoughtful gift from FarmGirl.

I'll tell you right now-- it's a great read. At over 700 pages, it's a surprisingly quick read, as well.

On his bio at The High Road, Larry Correia lists his occupations as "Accountant, gun/gear dealer, wannabe writer." I've since read that he's updated his bio elsewhere to "accountant, writer, retired gun dealer, and finance manager at a defense contractor."

If his next book is as good as his first, he'll need to retire the other jobs, too.

Go get a copy, and enjoy a fun read.