DINNER 102: Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Tonight, I went up to Dayton (about an hour north of our house) to Books & Co., a great bookstore, for the booksigning stop on the tour of Christopher Moore. His new book, A DIRTY JOB, continues his tradition of wry, funny books with a considerable twisted streak.

He talked for about an hour, offering comments on everything from his book’s first week on the New York Times Booklist to skanky hos, politics, the television show he is or is not working on, the cell phone dance party craze, TV show LOST (he’d have opened the damned hatch in the first episode!), pharmaceuticals, hospice, his wife-like girlfriend, religion, death, and the loss of loved ones. He took a few questions from the crowd of about 70 people, and then signed books. I found him to be witty, literate, and well-spoken. Seems like a nice guy — a real ‘beta male‘ (read the book).

At the event, they gave away a few t-shirts. I was lucky enough to win one, but cannot wear it since it really, truly seems to be a LARGE t-shirt… A CHILD’S large. I gave it to Wendy; she said she can wear it once — after washing, she doesn’t think it’ll fit anymore. They really are THAT small. A nice additional surprise — I met a couple of fans of Firefly who recognized my name when it was called for the t-shirt.

Click picture for a larger view.

Here is a picture from the event, with Christopher Moore and the teeny-tiny t-shirt.

Before the event, I had a Rice Krispy Treat (about 3 feet tall!) and a root beer to tide me over. On the way home, I stopped at McDonald’s for a double cheeseburger, which I ate in the car.

Also, when reading FLUKE: Or, I Know Why The Winged Whale Sings, I found a small technical error in the book — in it, a character instructs another character to drop a scuba tank and ‘first stage‘ (the apparatus that connects the air tank to your mouth) into the water, to be assembled by a character who is submerged. However, there is a component on the first stage that cannot get wet (it’s funny to me that an integral part of scuba gear cannot get wet). Christopher said that of all the divers that have read that book that I was the only one who mentioned the error to him!