a couple of random treats

[ellen_datlow]

The Eerie, Bizarre Sounds of the Saturnian System

or what we've been listening to out there and for something completely different:

Attention shoppers. Here's the 2007 site and news for the deals that can be had at all kinds of stories around the US the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year, aka Black Friday
Black Friday deals

Comments

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, most of this is fudged a bit: between compression and interpretation (for instance, what frequency to what tone), what you're hearing are the few that actually sound something like music. I imagine you could do digging through a lot of Cassini's data and either get something that doesn't sound melodious, or you get something that sounds completely different with a slightly different compression scale.

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

It actually wasn't that bad. A few customers were bloody awful, but overall we got a higher quality of clientele than most retail establishments because the folks in our store wanted to, y'know, read.

The primary exceptions to this rule involved last-minute holiday shopping frenzies and book signings by right-wing pundits. Regardless of your thoughts on the opinions of such authors, I can say without reservation that they have the most obnoxious fans I've ever encountered.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

I've been to a couple of P.J O'Rourke signings in my time, so I can agree with you from firsthand experience. When the author is threatening to leave if the yahoos don't shut up and get back in line, you know they're bad.

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

A store I worked at in San Francisco hosted a Michael Savage book signing. What a bastard! Savage and his staff actively baited and mocked our staff for being "a bunch of stupid liberals," and his fans tore our store apart, hassled our booksellers, annoyed the other customers, and generally acted more like a mob in 1930s Berlin than in new millennium America. Finally, Savage and his goons wound up signing and handing out - for free - books no one had paid for! I don't know if he ever made good on those "sales," but the manager was livid when she found out what had been going on.