Some really important shtuff ...

** Hey, be sure to check out my friend and fellow Black Hills area author Sandra Brannan. You can call her Sam, even though she's kind of a big deal.

** Another one bites the dust: Human Events, for decades the lone national conservative newspaper before the Fox era, on Wednesday announced that the grim reaper killing off print publications around the nation has reached its door on Capitol Hill. The Feb. 18 issue currently on the stands will be its last.

** I take good news where ever I can find it: Seven reasons why coffee is good for you.

** Small town hoops is also kind of a big deal in South Dakota. Here is one of the crazier finishes you will see anywhere in the U.S. all year. Warner vs. Leola-Frederick.

** My man Prince attended a fashion show in Minneapolis and nobody noticed. Have I told you about the time I hung out at his house? Yeah. And he's going to be on Fallon on Friday night.

** Are you in interested in being a part of BookTV’s new Online Book Club? Each month is a different book and author.  And you’re invited to join. Send an email expressing your interest to booktv@c-span.org. Or go to their Facebook page.

"God does not much mind bad grammar, but He does not take any particular pleasure in it." -- Erasmus

Friday night lite ...

TGIF. I only worked three and a half days this week but still ... TGIF!

** Here's an illustrated guide to recognizing insane people from 1883. It looks a lot like my family tree.

** As a former Norwegian turned Catholic, I found this column by former judge Andrew P. Napolitano very interesting: What Pope Benedict Did for the Catholic Church.

** I better get my act together, because Even Mark Twain Has A Shirtless Picture On The Internet.

** And, Robert Caro has won yet another literary prize, this one worth $50,000. The New-York Historical Society announced Thursday that Caro had won its American History Book Prize for the fourth volume of his Lyndon Johnson series, "The Passage of Power."

Koontz was good, became great

Just finished The Vision by Dean Koontz. It's one of his earlier works, 1977, and it's interesting to see how far he's come. His stuff is just tighter now, more precise, and doesn't need to resort to shocking sex scenes to captivate you. Perhaps the most interesting part in the newer edition paperback version I bought is the afterward, where he describes the circumstances under which he was living at the time - in Las Vegas with "tortoises, mad doctors, and con men."

My favorite underlined (I'm an underliner) portion from The Vision, is a description of their friend, the small town newspaper editor who drinks too much (damn stereotypes! hiccup):

"He argued that if you understood how screwed up the world was, if you saw how like a paradise it could be, if you understood that what could be never would be because most people were hopeless jackasses -- well, then you needed a crutch to get through life with your sanity intact. For some people, he said, it was money or drugs or any of a hundred other things. His crutch was Scotch. And damned good bourbon."

It's not me, it's you

I'm not saying Zoo Falls is a 5-star book, but this guy did, and who am I to argue with my supremely intelligent readers:

"After reading Mr. Haugen's first book "Joshua's Ladder" (which was excellent), I dove into "Zoo Falls". I'm glad I did. This is a really fun read, centered around the main character, Juicy. The author does a great job of introducing and weaving in all the characters, including the crazy district attorney. Throughout the novel, i was repeatedly cheering on Juicy and hoping for the failure of the inept mayor of "Sioux Falls." I look forward to more of the author's writings."

And stay tuned because the 90-day exclusive listing at Amazon expires this weekend and Zoo Falls will be available for all you non-Kindle types.