TSTL

Too Stupid To Live.

It's a condition seen way too often in romance novels (and horror flicks), but it's almost always the heroine who suffers from it. I honestly can't remember the last time I read a book with a TSTL hero, though I'm slogging my way through one right now.

This guy wins the door prize. He's so totally out of his element -- like, in an entirely new and different world where nothing works the way it did in the old world -- and he refuses to listen to or take advice from anyone. He thinks he's so macho/shit-hot, and by God, no one's gonna tell HIM what to do.

So he gets his ass kicked by some subhuman creature and has to be saved by someone else. Does he learn his lesson? Noooo. The next threat comes along, and by God, no one's gonna tell HIM what to do. After all, he's super-macho and shit-hot. He gets his ass kicked again, by a different subhuman creature and has to be rescued by someone else. Does he learn his lesson? Well, I put it down then, but I seriously doubt it.

The worst thing about this guy, though, is he's obnoxious as hell. He's rude and impulsive and arrogrant and smug and smarmy . . . and the heroine tells us repeatedly that he's so arrogant, he's CHARMING. No! He's ADORABLE. No! He's IRRESISTIBLE.

No! He's ANNOYING as hell.

Honest to God, this is the first time I can recall reading a romance novel and hoping the hero gets killed somewhere along the way and a new hero -- one worthy of the designation -- comes in. The sooner, the better. This guy really is Too Stupid To Live.

Sadly, this was my go-to book in case the one I'd already started turned out to be a dud. That one is a romantic suspense, my first by this author, and the writing's pretty good, and the characters are pretty likable. But the eeeevvviiill villain is so silly and over-the-top that I start giggling every time he enters a scene (and I'm SO not a giggler). Everything about him is ridiculous -- his back story, his goals, his method of committing crimes. We're supposed to be horrified by him -- everyone in the story is -- but it's hard to be scared when you're giggling.

The problem with both of these books is that the authors failed at what they were trying to do with their characters, and so they rely on having other characters try to mold our impressions of them. I've read lots of heroes whose arrogance really is part of their charm. This author missed the mark, though, and knew it, which is why the heroine keeps telling herself (and the reader) that he's charming and adorable. The charm wasn't coming across on its own, so the author had to intrude on the story to tell us. Just call me cynical, but I still ain't believin' it.

Again, with the villain, all the characters are so terrified of him that the reader expects some truly horrific, vicious sociopath. But the author didn't pull that off. He's a weak, cartoonish character who doesn't inspire any of the right emotions in this reader. (I'm pretty sure that the author wasn't trying to make me giggle with his every appearance.) He should inspire the same emotions in the reader as he does in the characters; since he doesn't, the others keep telling each other (and us) how awful he is. And that makes him even weaker and more cartoonish and pretty much ruins the story for me.

Oh, well . . . I shouldn't be reading anyway. I've got a deadline coming up, and I really don't want any readers plotting my hero's murder or giggling at my villain. Rachel10:17 AM

Not "Bringing," Damn It!

I'm reading a book in which the hero and heroine keep talking about him "bringing" her someplace. "I'm bringing you to the next town," he says. "You can't bring me there," she argues.

This goes on . . . and on . . . and on, and all I can think was "taking taking TAKING!"

There's this attitude these days that proper grammar, punctuation and word use aren't really important anymore, and it drives me crazy. The least you'd think a freakin' writer could do is use words correctly. But too many authors think close enough is good enough. After all, in the above-mentioned book, I got the idea: the hero wanted to take the heroine somewhere and she didn't want to be taken anywhere. So, since the author got the point across, I'm not supposed to care that she did it using the wrong word.

Sorry. I care. Speak with all the slang and improper grammar you want. Be as casual as you want in your e-mails and blogs. Write the dialogue in your books true to life. But for pity's sake, please use the right words in your books! Rachel10:47 PM

A Lie By Any Other Name

Story 1:
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea are on a plane flying into Bosnia. Once they land, they calmly exit the plane, are welcomed in a brief ceremony on the tarmac, where they meet an eight-year-old local girl, and then they proceed to the cars at a normal pace. (backed up by news footage)

Story 2:
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea are on a plane flying into Bosnia. They land "under fire," are told to get their bullet-proof "stuff" on, and they run, ducked over, to the cars to get away to safety. (refuted by news footage)

The first account, by all accounts---from Clinton, other passengers on the plane and the media---is what really happened. The second account is the story she has been telling in the past few months, until those pesky reporters called her on it.

Oops, both she and her spokesperson said. She "misspoke."

Hmm . . . part of the beauty of words is their preciseness. With the right words, you can make another person see/hear/feel/experience exactly what you've seen/heard/felt/experienced.

Granted, words can be vague, too. With the wrong words, or the so-so ones, your experience can and often does turn into something totally different to someone else.

Now, I'm not picking on Clinton. I'm not even that interested in the two vastly different accounts she's presented of the same occasion. What pisses me off is the explanation: she "misspoke." It's a common answer politicians get when they get caught being less than truthful.

Misspeaking can be a lot of things, like saying capacious instead of capricious, exaggerate instead of exacerbate, Oklahoma instead of Texas. Misspeaking is also when you let slip that your friend who told her boss she had to go to a funeral was at the spa instead. Misspeaking in all its forms, though, is unintentional. A slip of the tongue, speaking out of turn.

In this case, Clinton didn't "misspeak." She exaggerated. She embellished. To be very blunt about it, she lied. It wasn't unintentional; it was a deliberate rewriting of history. Sure, it sounded better; when you're looking to impress someone, going in under fire, the plane zigging and zagging, and running for your life is waaay more impressive than a perfectly normal landing and sedate walk to the car.

When did it become acceptable for politicians to "misspeak?" When did we stop holding public officials accountable for their truthfulness or lack thereof? No one cares anymore. No one even expects honesty or veracity from the people charged with running our cities, states and the federal government. Someone gets caught in a lie? Oh, well, everyone lies, don't they? Everyone cheats on their taxes and their constituents and their wives. Who cares?

Besides me? Rachel11:29 AM

Another Oklahoma Hero

The sixty-fifth Oklahoman has died in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Chris Hake was 26 years old. He grew up in Enid; he was married to a Stillwater girl and had a little boy named Gage and his family still lives in Enid. He was on his second deployment to Iraq, and according to his father, he loved what he was doing. He was loyal, dedicated and compassionate and all the things a good soldier is.

He was killed along with three other soldiers (a fifth was wounded) on Easter Sunday when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle in southern Baghdad.

From one Army parent to another, my prayers are with you, with your daughter-in-law and your grandson. And God bless Staff Sergeant Hake for his sacrifice.

"All gave some. Some gave all." Rachel9:34 AM

Commercials

You know me and commercials. I love a good one . . . though they're few and far between these days. I saw one last night for Outback Steakhouse that just set my teeth on edge.

It's our anniversary, they proclaimed (or maybe it was birthday). And our gift to you is this new wonderful dish.

Except . . . you have to pay for it, of course. Probably somwhere between $10 and $15.

And if you have to pay for it, it AIN'T no gift.

That one ticked me off almost as much as the one for yet another bogus weight-loss supplement in which they loudly say, "WE COULDN'T SAY ON TV IF IT WASN'T TRUE." Give me a freakin' break.

Just how stupid do these ad people think we are???

On the other hand, the Enzyte people hit the jackpot in my opinion with their Smilin' Bob commercials. I've loved those since the very first one, and they just keep getting better.

Can't say that too often about anything on TV. Rachel9:00 AM

Gratuitous Violence

I've been reading a lot of suspenses and thrillers lately, and I've come to the conclusion that there's too much needless, graphic violence in a lot of them. Maybe it's just because I've read one right after the other; maybe as I take a hard look around at the world we live in, I'm wondering if we've become so jaded that violence has to be more gratuitous, more graphic, more, well, violent, to catch our attention.

Whatever the reason, I'm declaring a moratorium on those books. I don't watch gory movies, and now I'm not reading gory books.

The thing is, you don't have to beat people over the head or bathe them in blood or terrorize them via the character to write a good story. This stuff strikes me as the easy way to make an impact. Meticulous research, a tightly-woven plot, believable characters whom we can relate to . . . why bother with all that WORK when you can do a half-assed job but throw in lots of ick and gore and make an impact on your readers?

The books that stick with me after I've finished them -- even the suspenses and the thrillers -- are the ones that are tightly written, tightly plotted, with great characters and great prose. A few well-chosen words can send a chill down the spine that's far spookier and more powerful than experiencing someone's torture on the page.

To each his own. For people who love the gory, gratuitous, graphic books, by all means, keep reading them. I just think I'll look for my reading material elsewhere. Rachel11:22 AM

Boys and Their Toys

Our neighbors' son recently returned home to live with Mom and Dad and brought with him an ATV. A really loud, really annoying ATV. And then he hooked up with a half dozen friends who also have ATVs, and since he's now living in the country, they come over to ride their loud, annoying ATVs up and down our road. Over and over and over and . . .

It drives me nuts. It drives the dogs nut, which makes me even nuttier. It starts in the morning and goes on well after dark. Even last night, when the lightning was flashing, the thunder was rumbling, and the rain was mixed with baby hail, the kid's still out there, driving back and forth. I'd begun to wonder if he couldn't get a date until I saw that his girlfriend was out there with him.

Sheesh, and she can't think of anything better to do with her boyfriend than ride on the back of his ATV on my road??? Go have sex or something!

And yeah, it's MY road. Literally. We own half the road for a few hundred yards and all of it from there on up the hill. Too bad the law requires us to let the neighbors have access to their property. And I don't have a problem with that, really, because we have to travel over someone else's property to get to ours. But letting people pass to get to and from their homes is one thing. Letting stupid kids, only one of whom lives out here, use the road as their own personal four-wheeler playground . . . Forget the noise pollution, the dust they keep stirred up, the inherent danger to four-wheelers. THEY'RE ANNOYING ME!

There ought to be a law. Rachel9:15 AM

Cameras, skirts and privacy

A while back some goober in Tulsa went to the Target store, followed a sixteen-year-old girl around until he got the opportunity to kneel down behind her, stick a camera under her skirt and take pictures. He was arrested as a peeping Tom, but the charges were dropped, and now the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has chimed in on the pervert's side.

Their reasoning: the law requires an expectation of privacy, and women have no such expectation in a public place.

WTF???

We have no expectation of privacy INSIDE OUR FREAKIN' CLOTHES???

It's perfectly legal in Oklahoma, according to the appeals court, for anyone to peep under a woman's clothing in public, without that woman's knowledge or consent.

How fucking stupid can people with law degrees be?

(Okay, loaded question. I know they can be pretty stupid, but this exceeds even my expectations of moronic thought processes.)

The statute requires the victim to be "in a place where there is a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy." And Target isn't such a place. It has to be a bathroom, dressing room, private home, etc. to be able to prosecute the guy. But holy crap, what can be more private, what could provide a more reasonable expectation of privacy, than your clothing???

I wonder what would have happened if the girl in this case, when realizing what the perv was doing, had turned around and kicked his balls up into his throat. Would the Court of Criminal Stupidity -- I mean, Appeals -- support her prosecution for assault?

I just hope the next time this perv picks up a camera, someone shoves it up his ass. Rachel1:34 PM

Goober with a Golf Club

Did you hear the story about the pro golfer who killed a red-shouldered hawk for making noise while he (the jerk, not the bird) was doing a segment for some golf show?

Idiot with an iron? Weiner with a wood? Dumb f*ck?

According to the news, the bird was making too much noise and interfering with the taping, so this moron named Tripp something-or-other began hitting balls at him. On about the tenth swing, he hit the hawk, which fell from the tree and, very soon after, died.

Too bad one of the multiple witnesses didn't take that club from ol' Tripp and beat the shit out of him with it. Rachel5:30 PM

Loreth Anne White Guesting Over at MJP Blog

Journalism's loss was romantic suspense's gain. Check out former reporter Loreth Anne White and latest suspense novel, The Heart of a Renegade, at my alter ego's blog. Go to: http://www.marilyn-pappano.com/news/index.php. Rachel10:20 AM

Gadgets R Us

Leah and I went shopping Friday afternoon for the first time in way too long. We hit the makeup counters at Saks, where a girl young enough to be my daughter commented on my . . . ahem . . . Brooke Shields eyebrows. She's lucky I didn't snatch her across that counter and rip out her hair. I found a lovely new lipstick at Bobbi Brown but got distracted and didn't buy it. (Not that I actually needed it. I have twelve or fifteen Bobbi lipsticks -- and I ain't gonna start counting the glosses. But "need" isn't the point of shopping at Bobbi. "Need" is when you get stuff like foundation or concealer or bronzer. The real fun is when you buy the stuff you WANT, like lip stuff and the eye stuff and the cheek stuff.)

We both got a hand massage and bought some wonderful cream from someplace that begins with a C, I think. Don't snicker over my bad memory. Ninety-nine percent of everything I use comes from Bobbi; I don't have trouble remembering that. The massage was incredibly relaxing, considering that it was just fingers and palms getting treated.

After a stop at Starbucks (frozen chai tea for me, some sort of complicated coffee-caramel-something-or-other for Leah, we headed to what could easily become my high holy place (buy more books! Rach needs to shop!): Williams-Sonoma.

They had a stove in there for a cool thirty-eight-grand and change. Yep, the price of a killer truck. It was part gas, part electric, had a 20,000 BTU burner, a French plaque (I'd never even heard of such a thing), a grill, four more burners, two ovens, two warming drawers, and came in a gorgeous blue but with really tacky looking gold handles, knobs and latches. I love to cook. I love kitchen stuff. But no way in my life could I even contemplate spending $38,000 on a stove.

Not that I have a house that would be suitable for a $38,000 stove.

They have all kinds of cool stuff at W-S. We debated the value of a stock pot (hammered copper, $800+) that was practically too heavy to lift empty. A $300 knife. (Not knife set; just one knife.) A truly tacky (and astonishingly ugly) hot pink and bright yellow table cloth. I drooled over the bottles of 25-year-old balsamic vinegar and the vanilla-bean-infused sugar. (I'm running low on sippin' vanilla. Gonna have to buy more soon.) We loved the ceramic egg cartons filled with bright-colored alabaster eggs and wondered whether the grandkiddo could gum a pink-and-yellow Easter marshmallow chick.

After all the looking, though, I just bought one thing: an ugly yellow garlic peeler -- the rubber kind that looks like a crooked piece of manicotti. Leah swore it worked like a miracle, and she wasn't kidding. On the way home, Robert and I stopped to buy garlic, and I peeled two full heads in, like, five minutes. It's too cool! He loves roasted garlic on sliced French bread lightly fried in olive oil, and I think I've finally got the timing down perfect for roasting peeled garlic. It was pretty damn delicious. I don't know how I lived my entire life without this too-cool gadget! Rachel4:30 PM

Featuring Marie Ferrarella and A DOCTOR'S SECRET

Over on my alter ego's blog, she's featuring Marie Ferrarella's latest suspense novel, out now! Go to: http://www.marilyn-pappano.com/news/index.php. Rachel9:13 AM