Happy Birthday Mom!

Good morning bookies! Stand by for news and comment.

*** Tomorrow I'm having my last Bonanza of the year. Maybe you can find something there you like, but even if not, check out Bonanzle for yourself. The fastest growing sales site on the net.

*** Did you know that The Guinness Book of World Records only has one printing? It's true. Once it's sold out, it's sold out. And despite an 11% increase in copies this year, the publisher has completely sold through their stock.

*** The cathartic aftermath of losing Forrest J. Ackerman continues as those who knew him grieve and remember. I was not so privileged, but knowing he was around somehow made life a little better. Heaven is probably filled with lots of Forrest Ackerman's.

25 things we miss about Uncle Forry

*** Sal Yvars had passed away. Sal was a baseball player, a catcher, who supposedly signaled Bobby Thompson that a fastball was headed his way during a game in 1951, a pitch that Thompson smacked out of the park for one of the most famous home runs in history, 'The Shot Heard Round the World.' Whether Yvars did this or not still isn't known for certain, but the incident has been written about in a number of books and so merits a very tenuous mention in this blog. (I wasn't sure if the connection was close enough to books so I asked the editor, who okayed its inclusion. Of course, I'm the editor.)

*** In the 'the horse is dead, let's see if we can beat it back to life' category, a new trend for Ebay-ites fed up with John Donahoe's nonsense is for sellers to sue buyers who leave them negative feedback. This, of course, is necessitated because JD left them no option when he shut down what had always made Ebay work, its two-way feedback system. Who said the collapse of a major corporation wasn't entertaining?

This ought to get Ebay some good press

*** I guess we've all heard of the King James Bible. I didn't realize that only 50 copies of the first 1611 edition still existed. The linked article has a nice photo of one that was donated to Hardin-Simmons University. This is the sort of story that appeals to my imagination, because it is possible that William Shakespeare could have handled that very book. (Yes, yes, I know the odds and everything. Jeez, can't a guy dream?)

And if flights of fancy don't appeal to you, the story of the couple who donated the Bible, along with a whole collection of other Bibles and related material, is quite touching. Karma can be bad, but it can also be very, very good.

Rare 1611 King James Bible

*** Finally, yes, it's my mom's 91st birthday today. I wish I was half as spry. Happy Birthday Mom!