Review: To Kill a Mocking Dog

To Kill a Mocking Dog by Angela Cowan

209 pages

Kindle Edition

Book Description from Amazon:
Dead serial-killer Martin Hollis gets one last chance at life - only it’s more of a living hell for him. The Committee decides that as part of a new trial initiative, Marty will travel in time, find would-be victims and become a serial-saver. The alternative is spending eternity in black nothingness.

To say he's not best pleased would be like saying Genghis Khan was a bit cranky, but Marty wants another chance and agrees. Then he discovers he won't be travelling through space and time alone...and when he meets his new partner, the whole black nothingness thing suddenly doesn't seem quite so bad.

Review:

Redemption?

I have to admit, I was both intrigued and turned off by the premise of turning Marty, a serial killer into a serial saver, but Angela Cowan’s skillful writing made me identify with and like Marty and his partner Weedgie the mocking dog. I was able to suspend my skepticism within a few pages.

Despite the serious aspects of this book, Cowan wrapped it with humor and whimsy making it deceptively easy to read and hard to put down. I appreciate it when an author gets her point across without bludgeoning me with her position on morality.

If there was one thing I would fault, is I felt the reason Marty became a serial killer a bit too convenient and not entirely convincing to me. That did not affect my enjoyment of the book, however.

So if you are looking for a fun read with some substance, I heartily recommend this book.

Proper protocol on hugging a baby :-)

Sorry for not posting for so long, but my excuse this time is that I'm working on the edits for Loyalty Binds Me, the sequel to This Time. So I have to thank my cousin for sending sharing this delightful manual: Instructions for Properly Hugging a Baby.

Enjoy!

Are you a Dord?

Typos—we all make them, but some are more spectacular than others. Take dord—it’s supposed to mean density. Dord first appeared in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary for nearly all of the 1930s until an editor found it in February, 1939. It was supposed to be “D or d” but when it first went in, no one noticed there were supposed to be spaces separating the "d"s from the "or" (see The 7 Most Disastrous Typos of All Time article in Cracked.com).

My friend told one of my favorite typo stories to me about a mechanically introduced typo that nearly cost her doctorate in psychology. This was pre-word processing and my friend hired someone to type her thesis on a typewriter that she rented. What she didn’t know was that the typewriter introduced a half space after every “e” in the text. The most egregious change was to transform “therapist” into “the rapist.”

“Unfortunately,” my friend had said, “that was often the truth.”

'Tis the Season for Mondegreens

I'm not a big fan of Christmas music, but hearing Winter Wonderland reminded me of how my eight-year-old mind heard this Christmas classic. Because I didn't know what a Parson was, I heard:
In the meadow we will build a snow man
And pretend that he is parcel brown
Further along in the song I heard:
Later on we'll perspire as we dream by the fire

So when I saw Miss Cellania's recent post on Christmas Mondegreens it put me in the mood to visit my favorite site for misheard lyrics whose url contains one of the most famous mondegreens: 'scuse me, while I kiss this guy. This site requires a SPEW WARNING else you'll be mopping up your monitor while counting head lice on the highway
from Tiny Dancer or watching as the girl with colitis go by the Beatles.

Here are three of mine that may or may not be on this archive.

The Beatles: But the fool on the hill / Sees the sun going down / And the ice in his hair / See the world spinning round.

Janis Joplin: Take another little piece of my hard on baby

Abba: Wannado, couldn't escape if I wanted to

Because these are funny

Doctors Notes, lifted from Miss Cellania's blog:

The things doctors have scribbled on patient’s charts when they are in a hurry:

# "Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year."

# "On the 2nd day the knee was better and on the 3rd day it disappeared completely."

# "The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1993."

# "Discharge status: Alive but without permission."

# "Healthy appearing decrepit 69 year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful."

# "The patient refused an autopsy."

# "The patient has no past history of suicides."

# "Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital."

# "Patient's past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days."

# "Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch."

# "She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night."

# "She is numb from her toes down."

# "While in the ER, she was examined, X-rated and sent home."

# "The skin was moist and dry."

# "Occasional, constant, infrequent headaches."

# "Patient was alert and unresponsive."

# "She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce."

# "I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy."

# "The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as a stockbroker instead."

# "Patient has two teenage children but no other abnormalities."

# "Skin: Somewhat pale but present."

# "Patient was seen in consultation by Dr. Blank, who felt we should sit on the abdomen, and I agree."

# "By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart stopped, and he was feeling better."

# "The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed."

# "When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room."

# "Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing."

# "The patient will need disposition, and therefore we will get Dr. Blank to dispose of him."

# "The patient expired on the floor uneventfully."