Checking in

[jmc_bks]

+In case you've been hiding under the metaphorical rock, it's time for DABWAHA.  Check out the brackets, then register and make your predictions.  I've been vacillating -- vote based on my actual preferences, or be pragmatic about it and select those books that a lot of others seemed to love (even if I hated them with the fire of a thousand burning suns or thought they were ~meh~).

+Dear Pope -- condoms aren't a part of the solution to the spread of AIDS?  Abstinence is best?  Yet another example of pragmatic reality being ignored by theoretical dogma.

+I've been totally wowwed by Sean Kennedy's Tigers and Devils.  Available in paperback and e-book versions from Dreamspinner Press here, and also for the Kindle here.  Reading this makes up for the less than impressive Def Con One from John Simpson (imaginative setting, okay as an action/adventure story, poor as a genre romance, with some stylistic choices that *really* did not work for me, including POV and narrator's voice), also from Dreamspinner.  (Discovered both when checking out the non-DRM publisher list printed by DA.)

+Also very pleased with Linnea Sinclair's Hope's Folly, which was the very first Kindle book I purchased :)  LS's back list has been hit or miss for me, especially the last couple of books, but HF was a home run for me.  Working on a blurb/review of sorts.

+Why is the tourney at Indian Wells not on TV anywhere?  Well, on FSN, which is available in limited markets.  Seriously, ESPN, how can you bill yourself as the worldwide leader in sports when your coverage of anything outside of American football, baseball and basketball is so craptastic?  And why must the Tennis Channel re-air (for the dozenth time!) the US-Switzerland Davis Cup matches -- they weren't that interesting live, and on endless repeat, well...waste of airtime. 

+Opening Day (away) is only two weeks away.  The home opener is 20 days away.  What did Einstein say, that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results?  Yet again, I will hope for a winning season.  .500 doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it?