Review. The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett. Ill. Josh Kirby.

What happens when you get old? What happens when you get old only because the world has changed too much? What happens when all the people that defined your era are dead? But for you, your gang of friends, and one last enemy?

You keep busy. Or you go out in style.

The writing is good, the illustrations are perfect. My only bitch is that the story wants to be a little longer...it feels like it was over-edited for length.

Nevertheless, this is a good book for anyone who's ever raised her fist (or other digits) to the powers that be.

Mrs. Kurtz, On Hold, fit the sixth.

"Can I have your phone number, m'am, starting with area code?"

"Don't you hang up on me. Or I will call back and talk to your manager. Scott. I know who you are. No matter how long I have to wait on hold this time. Don't even think of crossing me, because I'm one--"

"No, m'am. It's for--"

"And don't interrupt me. I am one vengeful bitch, and I will have you fired. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, m'am."

She wished she could see him: she'd be able to tell that she'd cowed him. Definitely. But he might be flipping her off right now. This was too easy. She tossed her hair out of her eyes and waited.

"May I have your phone number? M'am?"

"How rude. Ask me my name first."

"May I have your name?" He waited. "Please?"

"A little common curtesy works miracles. My name is Kurtz. Mrs. Emmaline Kurtz." And as an extra-special treat, she gave him her phone number.

For free.

Women. Apparently women do things to the male psyche that's good for it. Or maybe it's just the whole "I like you. You like me? Yes!" thing. Or maybe it's friendship, closeness in general. Anyway, I'm kind of seeing a friend of mine, uh, loosen up in ways I didn't know he was too tight.

But he did say that he was kind of sexist. I denied this, and told him that the only thing a feminist could yell about was the male-protect-female thing. And when that's all said and done, isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's just that I'm not the kind of chick that needs to be treated too much differntly (I don't worry about toilet seats, for instance), but I just don't see it.

Food Tried out a new technique for pork chops on Wednesday: brining. (Most of you can just skip this.) Brine: 4c (1 quart) water, 1/4c. salt, 1/4c. sugar. Marinate for 1 1/2 hrs, then grill, roast, or broil. Very nummy.

Tai Chi I went to my first class last night, here. I'm still trying to understand. It was good. That much I know. I woke up this morning with little soreness (mostly in the ankles, what there was of it), but my skin was waxy. Waxy! Not oily. Not sweaty or sticky. No. Pardon me for being, uh, gross, but the last time I felt skin like this was on corpses at the nursing home, years ago.

The class consisted both of white belts and other colors. (You get belts for this, because self-defense techniques are taught alongside the wellness techniques.) The white belts didn't say a word to me, but the other four people were all polite, all introduced themselves. Half the class was slow movements and much breathing; half the class was a workout with a long staff. I got to fart around with a metal fan a little, which, due to the innumerable bamboo/paper contraptions I fluttered over childhood tea parties, I was able to open, shut, and flip over without thumping myself or scraping up my hands.

About halfway through the class, I felt both tired and trambling with nervous energy.

I was probably trying too hard.

In case ye've not heard, the group from Florida (Roland, Philip, and Sharon) are coming to Colo. Spgs. from the 13th to the 18th. Also Steve Tooms (did I spell that right?) may be accompanying them. More than this I do not know even as a solid rumor.

Much gaming is scheduled to be done. Lee's working on a Champs scenario that promises a good, if somewhat twisted, good time. Possibly also Star Wars and something by Doyce shall be run.

Locations and schedules currently unknown.

Doyce came over on Wednesday, finally!

I wonder if he has dreams about his cel phone in which it doesn't ring--it crawls out of its holster, and sloooowly creeps up his shoulder and whispers in his ear, "Phone call, ssssir..." Then it clasps his ear in an embrace best described by H. P. Lovecraft.

Apparently the man is doing cool things with '30's-era pulp fiction & radio melodrama, in relation to RPG's. And he's busy. And he thinks bad puns deserve a good glare now and then.

Mrs. Kurtz, On Hold, part the fifth.

After eighteen minutes, she was no longer amused.

"Uh, what freaky messages?" The service engineer sounded sincere.

"The messages I had to hear for eighteen minutes by my clock. Can you un-der-stand that? I wasted eighteen minutes of my fucking time waiting for your ass to pick up the phone. What do you think I do? Watch TV all day? Eighteen minutes I listened to that crap about the aliens--"

"Aliens? What aliens?"

"At first it was just the janitors, you know. And now it's practically everybody. Eighteen minutes of this crap. Do you understand? Or are you an alien, too? Jim T. Biggins is a fucking nut, whoever he is--"

"I'm sorry, lady. I heard he lost it, but I didn't know--"

"What? What's going on with this company. I'm almost ready to drop it and switch to--"

"It's all taken care of. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Mr. Biggins has been fired for racism. Nobody knew he'd changed the message. I guess he--"

"Racism? Fuck this. My husband is black and I have two beautiful children. I'm not giving our hard-earned cash to some bunch of cocksucking racist pigs."

"You're not, m'am. That's why he got fired."

"What about the aliens?"

"What about 'em? We're really controlled by the Japanese."

"Fucking Japs," she said.

Published! The humor/erotica short story, "Customer Service" has been accepted and posted at Hoot Island here. It is, of course, dedicated to Lee. This sort of thing happens to him all the time.

Reviews. V for Vendetta, Issola

V for Vendetta, Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Good. Don't get me wrong. Very good. Not quite good enough. I don't buy the characters and plotlines the way I could the ones in Watchman. I didn't care about the whole thing nearly as much. I wasn't awestruck by literary genius. But don't get me wrong. Very, very good.

In addition, it always gets under my skin when people use "enlightenment" or "illumination" as a justification for violence. And vengeance, too, is pretty low on my list of motivations. But...Watchmen pulled off the same thing, brilliantly and painfully, and made me like it. What bugs me, I guess, about the use here is that the characters who use such motives don't pay for their actions the way they do in Watchmen. Sure (spoiler here), V bites it. He dies. Know what? Everybody dies. Mere death doesn't count as payment for one's actions. And the girl who takes over for him in the end...she should have died. She stands in front of the crowd at the end, makes a big speech, and disappears. But she should have died, right then and there. Some guy claiming to be Timothy McVeigh stands on a brick wall and starts talking about freedom, you don't let him walk just because someone in authority said he was dead.

But it's still better than anything that I've written, and better than most of the stuff that I've read.

But I can't include Issola, by Stephen Brust, in that category.

Stephen Brust is almost a master of the craft -- we're talking one or two more books before the status is unquestionable. He was always close, and here he gets closer. I won't put any spoilers in here, becuase bad things will happen to me if I do. If there's anything that'll make my in-laws come after me...

Brust has begun to pull everything together: his themes seem to be converging.. To Reign in Hell is suggested, as is The Gypsy. I didn't like Agyar -- mostly becuse I picked up the thing and identified the character as a varmpire from the first page -- but I want to read it again, because it seems...important.

This isn't the book to start with. It's the least stand-alone of all the Vlad books so far.

More than this I shall not say. (Woman, bite your tongue!)

Go Brust!