Do You Have A Liebster For Your Monkey?

I don’t often do awards on this blog, because Dennis gets them all reasons, but recently my friend Sharkbytes of My Quality Day gave Dennis me a Liebster award. Also known as Joan D. Young, She is the author of the Dead Mule Swamp series of small-town mysteries, and her late vizsla, Maggie, was Dennis’s longtime blog friend. Naturally Dennis snagged the award and proceeded to put on a Sunday Awards and Meme Show in his inimitable style, and while I can’t compete with his showmanship, I thought I would go ahead and post the award and answer the questions.

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The Early Years: Jim’s Clarinet Sounds Like A Chicken

So last week, I posted an ancient report card progress report and mentioned that when I played the clarinet, our dog, Miss Marple (AKA “Missy”), would plant herself in front of me and howl. I further mentioned that it was too bad there was no video because it probably would have made us―or at least Missy―Internet stars. Well, there’s still no video, but since my dad knows where all his pictures are, there is, at least, photographic evidence:

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Teaser Tuesday 7/11/2017: “Plot it Yourself”

These days, I do nearly all my reading on an e-reader, currently an InkBook Obsidian, but I do on occasion return to the dead tree books of yore. Typically this will be because someone gave or loaned me said dead tree edition. Such was the case with Dune, which, being a door-stopper of a book, I eventually bought in e-form so I wouldn’t have to fight with it when reading at lunch; and such is the case with the Nero Wolfe books, which my father sent to me in a box a while back. I’ve read them all before, but now I’m reading them again, because who doesn’t like to spend some time visiting old friends? The one I’m currently into is Plot it Yourself, in which Wolfe goes up against a con artist with a fondness for pretending that popular novels are plagiarisms of his or her own work, and also for knives.

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Teaser Tuesday 10/6/2015: “Pale Queen Rising”

So this week I’m reading Pale Queen Rising, by A.R. Kahler, in which an assassin from Faerie (who, despite being from Faerie, is not actually of Faerie) is charged by Queen Mab with finding out who is skimming off the top of her harvest of Dream. Which is, apparently, a little bit like skimming meth from Heisenberg. If you’re going to do it, do not get caught.

"Here, falcon falcon falcon ..."
“Here, falcon falcon falcon …”

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Teaser Tuesd — Oooh Puppy!!!

Not much reading or writing got done last week.  I’ve been a bit busy …

Four Questions And A Few Coincidences

So this week we interrupt our usual parade of “Teaser Tuesday”, “Random Rejection”, and “Let’s Try To Figure Out If My Wife Is Actually Paying Attention To Battlestar Galactica Or Not”* posts to answer a few quick questions posed to me by Donna over at Donna and the Dogs. Like me, Donna is a writer, but the parallels do not stop there!

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Still, Still Not A Review Of “Breaking Bad”

So here we are, partway through the fourth season of “Breaking Bad”, which we started watching on Netflix back in January — obviously we are amateurs when it comes to binge-watching TV shows. At this point “Breaking Bad” has pretty much been enshrined as the Best Show Ever. Not only does it not put my wife to sleep (with the single exception of the episode “Fly“, which she characterized as “too ‘Breakfast Club’-ish”; despite being a card-carrying member of Generation X, she is not a fan of “The Breakfast Club”), but she actually tries to get me to stay awake for it. Shades of “Beasts of the Southern Wild“!

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Spoiler Sunday: The Catacombs

Last week I posted a (partial) tension-reliever as to the fate of Bernard and Nebandalex after the first cliffhanger at the end of Shards; this week, it’s Mercy’s turn, after things … how shall I put it? … go less than well for her during her second run-in with the villain of the piece.

As before, major spoilers lie ahead!

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Here’s Where The Story Ends

Most of the readers of this blog are probably aware of my other, much-more-popular-than-this-one blog, Dennis’s Diary of Destruction, which features the antics and adventures of three dogs, an evil cat, ninja hedgehogs, a sarcastic field mouse, a stoner ex-DEA drug-sniffing dog, and various other bit players. When I discovered that Dragon Stones had hit the best-seller list on the Amazon.co.uk Kindle store, I put Dennis’s blog on hiatus so I could concentrate on finishing my next fantasy novel (which is not a sequel to Dragon Stones — but, due to popular demand, such a sequel will be coming eventually). This decision produced much sadness amongst Dennis’s nice readers. Fortunately, one of them, Mango Relentlessly Huge, has most thoughtfully provided an ending to my book so that I can get back to Dennis’s Diary that much faster. So here, for your reading pleasure, is the final chapter of my next novel, as written by Mango the mastiff. Enjoy!

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Crosspost: stuf frum japan wot isnt elektroniks!!!

Because I’m feeling lazy, and because Planet Ross is a frequent reader/commenter here, I thought I would cross-post Dennis the Vizsla‘s article about the book Ross sent him from Japan. As you can see, Dennis is a great connoisseur of literature, and also has friends in high places.

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