There's already literally 2,000 reviews of this 1992 Wally Lamb novel blessed by Oprah on amazon.com so I'm not going to add to the clutter or go into detail, except to say this has got to be the least appealing heroine of a novel since Scarlett O'Hara, and at least that bitch saved her family during a war. Although Delores Price has some trauma in her life -- a stillborn baby brother, parents divorced, her mother going into a mental institute for awhile, her own rape by a tenant -- even so, I never felt like that was an excuse for her to be the nastiest person on earth to everyone she encountered. Cutting herself off from the people around her just made her situation worse.
I kept waiting for her to finally get her comeuppance, as if all that came before wasn't enough, and it wasn't, and yet she still has a somewhat happy ending.
It made me think about my own traumas. There has been spans of time where I let myself use them as an excuse, but no one should because you can get past it.
It also made me think about where the publishing industry is going. Pocket Books has this priced at $7.99, and I can assume they made their money on it when they sold it, but since then, it has been bought and resold on amazon.com several times over. I bought it from someone for $1.99 and I'm reselling it for $1.98, and Pocket gets none of that. The book industry should be embracing the electronic book platform because it eliminates all this aftermarket reselling which takes away from their sales.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Wrong Turn, Great View
Although I was told the Springfield Landfill in Western Henrico was hard to find, my Google Map driving directions couldn't have been more clear, and I went straight to it in the rain this morning, with one small carload of household cast-offs. Much to my surprise, I was asked for $3 to get in. I was used to getting into the great dump in Hanover County for free, so this was annoying. You would think the clerk would notice my tiny car couldn't possibly hold much junk.
I immediately got lost. I saw a holding pen for tires straight ahead, and a road off to the left. A truck had just taken the road, so I followed it. It was a long and circling dirt road that got progressively muddier and I was climbing a grassy mini-mountain. By the time I was making the last loop to where the top flattened off, I could see literally for miles across Henrico County. I was way, way up. What kind of dump was this? It was really muddy up at the top, and there were a couple of bulldozers, and some debris, like a clothes and shoes, but not the amount of garbage I was expecting.
"Where's the dump part?" I asked one of the bulldozer guys. He was startled to see me. "At the bottom, you should have made a right turn when you came in."
I turned my little car around and headed back down the mountain. It was then I noticed that this muddy road I was going down -- well, one side was a sheer cliff and there wasn't much between me and a very long roll down. I had to trust my little Mazda to hang onto the road.
Back at the bottom of the mountain, I saw the ramp that took me to a more traditional dumping place, a place where you just threw your trash into big trailers, and another area where you could put things that others might want. I was sad that it cost $3 to get to this junk display case. Some of my favorite lamps and furniture came from the shed of possibilities at the Hanover dump and it didn't cost me $3 to pick over it.
I had planned to make several dump runs that day, but between the rain and the $3, I gave up after one. I told my husband about my misadventure when he came home, after stopping to hose all the dump mud off my white car. "What if you had slid off the mountain?" he said, shocked that I had made such a colossal wrong turn.
"I thought about that," I said. But I didn't. And that was quite a view. Are there any other really high places you can go and see Henrico?
I immediately got lost. I saw a holding pen for tires straight ahead, and a road off to the left. A truck had just taken the road, so I followed it. It was a long and circling dirt road that got progressively muddier and I was climbing a grassy mini-mountain. By the time I was making the last loop to where the top flattened off, I could see literally for miles across Henrico County. I was way, way up. What kind of dump was this? It was really muddy up at the top, and there were a couple of bulldozers, and some debris, like a clothes and shoes, but not the amount of garbage I was expecting.
"Where's the dump part?" I asked one of the bulldozer guys. He was startled to see me. "At the bottom, you should have made a right turn when you came in."
I turned my little car around and headed back down the mountain. It was then I noticed that this muddy road I was going down -- well, one side was a sheer cliff and there wasn't much between me and a very long roll down. I had to trust my little Mazda to hang onto the road.
Back at the bottom of the mountain, I saw the ramp that took me to a more traditional dumping place, a place where you just threw your trash into big trailers, and another area where you could put things that others might want. I was sad that it cost $3 to get to this junk display case. Some of my favorite lamps and furniture came from the shed of possibilities at the Hanover dump and it didn't cost me $3 to pick over it.
I had planned to make several dump runs that day, but between the rain and the $3, I gave up after one. I told my husband about my misadventure when he came home, after stopping to hose all the dump mud off my white car. "What if you had slid off the mountain?" he said, shocked that I had made such a colossal wrong turn.
"I thought about that," I said. But I didn't. And that was quite a view. Are there any other really high places you can go and see Henrico?
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Craigslist Evil People
I put a camera for sale on Craigslist since there were 13 of them already on Amazon.com, and even at the lowest price, I had no buyers after two weeks. On Craigslist, I immediately got three responses, one from Sam asking for "shutter actuations," which I don't know what that is.
Then another from Mike with a Yahoo email account that has a peculiar, un-Mike like email address, alessandraazh. He wants to know if I still have the camera. Well, yes, I just posted it 5 minutes ago late on a Saturday night.
Then I get an email from "Mario" also asking me if I still have the camera. Mario has a gmail account which is also two names, johnandjacob. I say I do.
Within minutes, I get an email from John Powell, also from the johnandjacob email address.
Hi,
Thanks for the mail...i was introduced to this site by a friend at
work and i will like immediate purchase of this item for my Niece
'Bella' who is away of the state and been requesting for this item...i
will offer you $500 including the shipping charges to her.. there
because she is in need of it as a matter of urgency and due to my work
i don't have time to handle the shipping..i will want you to help me
handle the shipping very well to her..Get back to me with your
confirmed PayPal email address so that i can send the payment..
Get back to me asap...
That's pretty fractured English for someone with the very English name of John Powell. Mario, at the same email address, had a street address in Boyertown, PA on the bottom of his email and a telephone number. John has no location. I do a Google search on the telephone number and I get all hits about Nigerian scams. All the reports are about people trying to buy things on Craigslist giving this phone number. Some reports say the phone is located in Jupiter, Florida, others in Seattle, Washington. Not surprisingly, the middle three digits of 206-666-5748 are demonic.
(Area code 206 covers Seattle, so John and Mario of Boyertown, PA have a very, very long telephone cord.)
Also, I am amused that the niece's name is the same as a currently popular character in vampire novels and the offer is for more than I am asking for the camera, almost twice as much. Who pays more, plus shipping? Where does Bella live that she can't find this camera locally? There's 13 of them on amazon.com right now. Even so, I write back a reminder that the ad said cash only and I meant to sell it locally. If this person wants to pay for it electronically, they need to go to my listing on amazon.com and pay for it through that company.
John writes back immediately and now he is getting bossy.
I have already confirmed shipping cost to her which is not more than
$60 to her via usps..kindly get back with the confirmed paypal email
so i can send the fund..Kindly go to www.paypal.com and set up account
and get back to me with your paypal email so i can send the fund..my
husband have already sent the fund into my paypal account thats why i wanna pay via that..
John has a husband? His husband must be Mario. Who am I to question a gay marriage in Boyertown, PA? You can send money to people through Paypal if all you know is their email address, and John is corresponding with me, so he already knows how to send me money. Something else is going on here. They are either going to also ask for the password and think I will give it to them, or hope I will mail the camera before their payment has cleared because they are using stolen credit card numbers.
It's probably a mistake that I continue to talk to them out of my email address, but I remind them the ad said cash only. It is now 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, but John, who is too busy to send his niece a camera, but not too busy to be writing me in the middle of the night, gives it one more try. Never once have we discussed the condition of the camera.
but i dont mean to hurt human beign like me..is just that am a busy
person that work trice in a day..get back if you can help me out..
If John is working thrice in a day, he must be working inside a Dickens novel. Who works thrice? I have lost interest in helping out Bella.
Meanwhile, I have not heard back from Mike, but since his first email started the same way Mario's did and he also had a double-named, free email address, he was probably a Nigerian operative who went to bed early or found a deal to work that was actually going down.
Then another from Mike with a Yahoo email account that has a peculiar, un-Mike like email address, alessandraazh. He wants to know if I still have the camera. Well, yes, I just posted it 5 minutes ago late on a Saturday night.
Then I get an email from "Mario" also asking me if I still have the camera. Mario has a gmail account which is also two names, johnandjacob. I say I do.
Within minutes, I get an email from John Powell, also from the johnandjacob email address.
Hi,
Thanks for the mail...i was introduced to this site by a friend at
work and i will like immediate purchase of this item for my Niece
'Bella' who is away of the state and been requesting for this item...i
will offer you $500 including the shipping charges to her.. there
because she is in need of it as a matter of urgency and due to my work
i don't have time to handle the shipping..i will want you to help me
handle the shipping very well to her..Get back to me with your
confirmed PayPal email address so that i can send the payment..
Get back to me asap...
That's pretty fractured English for someone with the very English name of John Powell. Mario, at the same email address, had a street address in Boyertown, PA on the bottom of his email and a telephone number. John has no location. I do a Google search on the telephone number and I get all hits about Nigerian scams. All the reports are about people trying to buy things on Craigslist giving this phone number. Some reports say the phone is located in Jupiter, Florida, others in Seattle, Washington. Not surprisingly, the middle three digits of 206-666-5748 are demonic.
(Area code 206 covers Seattle, so John and Mario of Boyertown, PA have a very, very long telephone cord.)
Also, I am amused that the niece's name is the same as a currently popular character in vampire novels and the offer is for more than I am asking for the camera, almost twice as much. Who pays more, plus shipping? Where does Bella live that she can't find this camera locally? There's 13 of them on amazon.com right now. Even so, I write back a reminder that the ad said cash only and I meant to sell it locally. If this person wants to pay for it electronically, they need to go to my listing on amazon.com and pay for it through that company.
John writes back immediately and now he is getting bossy.
I have already confirmed shipping cost to her which is not more than
$60 to her via usps..kindly get back with the confirmed paypal email
so i can send the fund..Kindly go to www.paypal.com and set up account
and get back to me with your paypal email so i can send the fund..my
husband have already sent the fund into my paypal account thats why i wanna pay via that..
John has a husband? His husband must be Mario. Who am I to question a gay marriage in Boyertown, PA? You can send money to people through Paypal if all you know is their email address, and John is corresponding with me, so he already knows how to send me money. Something else is going on here. They are either going to also ask for the password and think I will give it to them, or hope I will mail the camera before their payment has cleared because they are using stolen credit card numbers.
It's probably a mistake that I continue to talk to them out of my email address, but I remind them the ad said cash only. It is now 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, but John, who is too busy to send his niece a camera, but not too busy to be writing me in the middle of the night, gives it one more try. Never once have we discussed the condition of the camera.
but i dont mean to hurt human beign like me..is just that am a busy
person that work trice in a day..get back if you can help me out..
If John is working thrice in a day, he must be working inside a Dickens novel. Who works thrice? I have lost interest in helping out Bella.
Meanwhile, I have not heard back from Mike, but since his first email started the same way Mario's did and he also had a double-named, free email address, he was probably a Nigerian operative who went to bed early or found a deal to work that was actually going down.
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