Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Do Not Pour Hot Water on a Frosted Over Windshield!

Thanks, guys.

You were all in one hundred percent agreement in your advice to me: Do not pour hot water on the frosted over windshield to melt the frost--or it may potentially break the windshield.

Being a South Florida boy, I dd not know that common bit of windshield wisdom.

I guess I dodged a bullet. My windshield is still intact despite its hot water bath. I will not do it again.

This winter thing is tougher than I thought. Tryin' to get used to it. Trying' to adapt.

Thanks,

Preston

Monday, January 11, 2010

I Am an Arizona Cardinals Fan

I never thought I would be saying this, but I am now, at least temporarily, an Arizona Cardinals fan.

As many of you know, I am the world's number one St. Louis Rams fan--but they took a little nap time break this year and left me without a team to pull for.

Way back when the Rams were the Greatest Show on Turf, they had a scrappy, tough as nails QB by the name of Kurt Warner.

Since Kurt Warner is now a Cardinal (and saintly is the lad indeed) and since the Cardinals are playing like the gunslinging Rams of yore ('98 through '04), I have granted myself permission to root for them.

Go Warner!

Go Cardinals!

But seriously, folks, you gotta admire Warner. Age 38. Completed 29 of 33 passes. Tossed 5 TDs and no INTS. Passed for over 400 yards.

Kinda reminds me of Jim Plunkett of the old Oakland Raiders. Poised. Unflappable. And destined for greatness.



Thanks,

Preston

Snow Flurries in Miami

At 6:00 a.m. this morning after listening to the Weather Channel report 26 degrees in Kendall, I went outside to check my car. Yep. There was frost on the window. Actual frost.

I was so excited. I went back into the house and got some steaming hot water in a cup, poured that bad boy on the windshield, brushed it off with a towel. Voila! Frost-be-gone! I felt so . . . northern.

Then I wondered whether I had done the right thing. Would not sub freezing temperatures eventually freeze to ice even the hot water I had poured on the windshield?

Would my windshield suddenly freeze over while I was driving to work?

What do people up north do when they wake up with frost on their windshields?

Anyway, another day without portable heaters in South Florida.

Come on, Home Depot. Get your act together.


Thanks,

Preston

Sunday, January 10, 2010

No Portable Heaters in Miami

In the year 2010, there are no protable heaters to be had in South Florida. In the past FIVE days I drove around Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and I phoned the major stores in Palm Beach County--only to find out that they had NO portable heaters despite the fact that they have known for a week that we would be having a cold freeze throughout the weekend.

There were no portable heaters to be had after Wednesday, January 6, 2010 in Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes, CVS, Brandsmart, or Walgreens (I spotted them in Walgreens on Monday the 4th but was not alert enough to purchase one before the big chill hit).

ACE was the only store with portable heaters and they were selling them (according to the manager) at about 200 to 250 per day. They couldn't take them off the truck fast enough. They made a killing! Good for them!

Capitalism in action! It's all about supply and demand. When people are demanding an item, the guy who can supply it gets rich.

Wake up, people. It's thirty degrees in Miami. Hint. Hint. There's a potential windfall out there for anyone who can supply a few thousand portable heaters.

Maybe Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, and Brandsmart are too big or too rich to want more money. In this depressed economy? I think not.

Some mid level executive is going to be fired for dropping the ball on this one.

Thanks,

Preston

Lipshitz 6

Lipshitz 6
Reading T Cooper for Christmas

Punk Blood

Punk Blood
Jay Marvin

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Anonymous Rex

Anonymous Rex
Reading Eric Garcia for Christmas

Vinegar Hill

Vinegar Hill
Reading A. Manette Ansay for Christmas

Nicotine Dreams

Nicotine Dreams
Reading Katie Cunningham for Christmas

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz
Pulitzer Prize Winner!!!

Edwige Danticat

Edwige Danticat
New Year's Reading

Greed

Greed
This Brother Is Scary Good

One More Chance

One More Chance
The genius Is At It Again/The Rapper CHIEF aka Sherwin Allen

Sandrine's Letter

Sandrine's Letter
Check out Sandrine's Letter To Tomorrow. You will like it, I insist.

All or Nothing

All or Nothing

Editorial Reviews of All or Nothing

New York Times--". . . a cartographer of autodegradation . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu — the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand."

Florida Book Review--". . . Allen examines the flaming abyss compulsive gambling burns in its victims’ guts, self-esteem and bank accounts, the desperate, myopic immediacy it incites, the self-destructive need it feeds on, the families and relationships it destroys. For with gamblers, it really is all or nothing. Usually nothing. Take it from a reviewer who’s been there. Allen is right on the money here."

Foreword Magazine--"Not shame, not assault, not even murder is enough reason to stop. Allen’s second novel, All or Nothing, is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling."

Library Journal--"Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."—Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

LEXIS-NEXIS--"By day, P drives a school bus in Miami. But his vocation? He's a gambler who craves every opportunity to steal a few hours to play the numbers, the lottery, at the Indian casinos. Allen has a narrative voice as compelling as feeding the slots is to P." Betsy Willeford is a Miami-based freelance book reviewer. November 4, 2007

Publisher’s Weekly--"Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction . . . The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as P chases, finds and loses fast, easy money. Allen (Churchboys and Other Sinners) reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing."

Kirkus Review--"We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don't play to win." Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-'n'-burn novella, sums up the madness. A black man in Miami, P has graduated from youthful nonchalance (a '79 Buick Electra 225) to married-with-a-kid pseudo-stability, driving a school bus in the shadow of the Biltmore. He lives large enough to afford two wide-screen TVs, but the wife wants more. Or so he rationalizes, as he hits the open-all-night Indian casinos, "controlling" his jones with a daily ATM maximum of $1,000. Low enough to rob the family piggy bank for slot-machine fodder, he sinks yet further, praying that his allergic 11-year-old eat forbidden strawberries—which will send him into a coma, from which he'll emerge with the winning formula for Cash 3 (the kid's supposedly psychic when he's sick). All street smarts and inside skinny, the book gives readers a contact high that zooms to full rush when P scores $160,000 on one lucky machine ("God is the God of Ping-ping," he exults, as the coins flood out). The loot's enough to make the small-timer turn pro, as he heads, flush, to Vegas to cash in. But in Sin City, karmic payback awaits. Swanky hookers, underworld "professors" deeply schooled in sure-fire systems to beat the house, manic trips to the CashMyCheck store for funds to fuel the ferocious need—Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.

At Books and Books

At Books and Books
Me And Vicki at Our Reading

Bio


Preston L. Allen is the recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Fiction for his short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003). His works have appeared in numerous publications including The Seattle Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Asili, Drum Voices, and Gulfstream Magazine; and he has been anthologized in Here We Are: An Anthology of South Florida Writers, Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction, Miami Noir, and the forthcoming Las Vegas Noir. His fourth novel, All Or Nothing, chronicles the life of a small-time gambler who finally hits it big. Preston Allen teaches English and Creative Writing in Miami, Florida.