Living Online

More insight on human behavior... Last night it took me 2.5 hours to get home. Reno roads were covered with a half inch of ice, and a significant portion of Reno's drivers don't own trucks and SUVs (or tiny cars equipped with studded tires or chains) and shouldn't be driving under these conditions. I got to thinking that last year this time the media was full of stories about how gas prices drove down the sales of trucks and SUVs. All the major car manufacturers had huge gas card incentives just to move these vehicles off the lot. You think that this year, considering a huge portion of the country is under snow, that people are regretting they bought those tiny cars? It's fine and dandy to accuse Americans of being gas hogs and loving their trucks and SUVs when you live in LA or Phoenix or Florida. But shoot, what's fine for someone that lives in Los Angeles isn't fine for someone that lives a hundred miles away. (Some people don't realize this, but Californ

Up In Flames by Ember Sinclair Available January 12, 2007 from CobbleStone Press www.embersinclair.com Blurb: Kat Ashbrook has two things on her mind—catching a murderer and sexy new boss, Connor Mercer. She never expected his come-hither looks, but she’s betting she can resist if she keeps her mind on the job. Too bad a prank leads to her surrender and possibly their deaths.

Keziah Hill created a long list of blogging romance authors that hang out at Romance Divas, as well as hang out in the world of blogging.

The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers (1928) THROUGHOUT the whole vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. Around the vampire have clustered the most sombre superstitions, for he is a thing which belongs to no world at all; he is not a demon, for the devils have a purely spiritual nature, they are beings without any body, angels, as is said in S. Matthew xxv. 41, "the devil and his angels." Montague Summers (1880-1948) wrote several books about the occult, from the perspective of a devout Catholic. The Vampire: His Kith and Kin is a book that was researched. The author points to literature, and other sources. There is a free on=line version of this text at: http://allstarz.hollywood.com/religioustext/goth/

Available now at Freya's Bower! Cora Phillips has witchcraft in her blood, but she's convinced she inherited the recessive rather than the dominant trait. Her mother and sister are the real heiresses to the Lune tradition; Cora has neither the interest nor the inclination to take up the Dragonkeeper mantle. Years ago, she left the New York City Witch lifestyle to the other women in her family, and said goodbye to all the velvet and lace. However, during a moment of insomnia-induced insanity, she agrees to come back to celebrate Christmas/Winter Solstice with her family. It comes as a shock to all three women when Cora, through clumsy fumblings to "get in touch with her goddess" at her sister's urging, calls a pair of ancient dragons into her meditation circle. Cora swears it's a mistake. Her mother swears it's the correct course of events. Eventually, every Dragonkeeper issues the call to mate. Problem is, nobody expected Cora to summon even a single drago

Toni Andrews had a post that got me giggling. Partly because I heard some funny baby-related stupid questions this past few weeks when the twins were visiting with their parents. My sister-in-law and brother regularly get asked, "Are they twins?" "No, the baby on the left is the neighbor’s. We have children the same age so we went in together on this double-wide stroller and take turns walking the babies. Today is my day.” An old friend has a 7-month-old daughter. She went to the K-Mart photo studio and had the cutest little Christmas card made, and told us all that her new little girl is the “light of her life”. Someone else I know read the card and asked me, "She had a baby this year?" This time, I couldn't help myself, I told that person: "Actually, no, I think she had the neighbor's kid photographed."

I read the last story in this anthology today -- Red Moon Rising by Lori Handeland. I haven't read any of her nightcreature books. The hero is a member of the Jager-Suchers, which protect humanity from evil paranormal. In Red Moon Rising the bad guy was a Navajo skinwalker. I haven't read a skinwalker story in a while, so it was an interesting change. The romance author has been posting one chapter a month of a free story on her website. When Midnight Comes was originally published in a Love Spell Halloween Anthology about 10 years ago.

I still can't make up my mind about the fireworks. Downtown Reno can get pretty insane tonight, and though I'm feeling much better, I keep trying to talk myself out of going wandering around in the cool night air. They block off Virginia Street so the parking is a nightmare. No matter what I'd end up walking. Normally, I'm not opposed to that but I'm still getting over the flu/cold that I had. I think the fireworks would be pretty this year because there is a cloud cover to help highlight the light. Fireworks are always lovely though. Maybe I should go see Apocolypto, or Casino Royale. I've been meaning to see both of those. Hmm... Choices. Choices. LOL. This picture is from two years ago when it was snowing on New Years'. Last year it was raining so hard the fireworks were cancelled and downtown Reno woke up to water flowing over the banks of the Truckee River. Last year was a real mess.