So, the new Batman opened last night, reaching all new record numbers at the box office in ticket sales and popcorn consumption. There’s already a certain nostalgic quality to it due to Heath Ledger’s death. A local movie theater showed it at midnight here Thursday on 7 screens and 1400 people showed up. I do want to see it but will probably wait a few weeks. I’m not one for crowded theaters full of people who still can’t manage to turn off their cell phones and shut out the world for more than 3 hours.

I’ve always been a fan of the Batman since Tim Burton directed the first two. I thought the first film with Jack Nicholson as the joker was brilliant, and shook my head at the thought of Michael Keaton but he pulled it off. I immediately invested my tiny paycheck in anything Batman….posters, lapel pins, trading cards, even a rug in my bedroom. I went as the Joker for Halloween that year. It’s still hard to believe that was 1989.

Burton was back for the second installment which I thought was just as good. The villains, Catwoman and Penguin, made this movie so “Burtonisque.” And who doesn’t love Michelle Pfeiffer in that outfit!

Again, it was all about the villains in the third movie, Batman Forever in 1995. I loved Harvey Twoface and he made an excellent Halloween costume again that year. I hated Jim Carey and thought the Riddler role should have gone to Robin Williams. We got out first look at Robin here. Chris O’Donnell was quite the eye candy. Oh, and let’s not forget Batman and those nipples!

Schumacher really ran thin two years later with Batman and Robin. Don’t you remember? Arnold was Mr. Freeze! “Ice to see you! Allow me to break the ice!” By then, like everyone else, I was tired of Batman and ready for a new hero. No wonder we all thought that would be the end of this movie franchise. Everyone thought Schumacher had killed the Batman!

But Christopher Nolan breathed new life into into it back in 2005 with Batman Begins, going back to the original dark comics and finally giving Batman himself the spotlight. I thought it was different and actually loved it. Would I have loved it back in 1989 had it been that first taste of Batman? Probably not.

But I love it now and I am very excited about the new film, and the new Joker. I also hear that Harvey TwoFace pops up in this one! But I have to wonder, is this the end of Batman finally? Is Hollywood done with him? What makes him so appealing? Outside of Superman, he’s the only other hero with just as much screen time.

With such record numbers at the box office, I seriously doubt this will be it. So if Nolan and Bale come out again to make another, I can’t help but wonder….who will be the villain this time?

Wow!  Apparently, STEALING WISHES is doing better as an E-Book than it is right now in Paperback.  It’s reached #43 in the GLBT category in Amazon Kindle sales.  Thanks to all who have purchased it, in Ebook or Paperback!  I hope you’ll post a review at Amazon after reading it!

Download STEALING WISHES to your Kindle here!

Buy the paperback at Amazon here for $12.60!  Or look for me on Amazon here as MISTERYARBS.  You can get a signed first edition copy shipped directly from me for just $12.00.  That’s $3.00 off the cover price!

Don’t have a Kindle E-reader?  Don’t worry!  Download STEALING WISHES as an Ebook to your computer right here for just $5.00!

Barnes and Noble has it too!

After coming across recent stories about charities and good will in the news and on the television, and wanting to help spread the word about them, J has created a new WordPress blog at www.thecharitychest.com.  Check it out, comment, and give him more suggestions to fill the chest with your own favorites that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Mimi Ausland is a 12 years old girl from Oregon, but after giving some serious thought to the “Free Rice” website that helps starving children, she went to her parents with the concept of creating a website to help starving pets. The result?

www.freekibble.com

Visit the site, take a quiz, and every day that you do her corporate sponsor will donate 20 pieces of kibble to an animal shelter.

Mimi was highlighted on the Today’s show today, and has actually saved a shelter from going out of business. Pets are being abandoned at shelters more than ever these days due to home foreclosures! As the numbers in shelters go up, so does the demand to feed them.

So, click on the link and take that quiz every day this week! Right or wrong, an animal wins! And kudos to a twelve year old child with a big heart and a big mind for coming up with this!!

That’s right! I have more first edition copies of STEALING WISHES, signed by me! Who wants ‘em?

Just click here to be redirected to Amazon.com. Right next to the book cover, look for this information shown below. Click on the “8 used and new link” and look for the copies sold by MISTERYARBS. I’m currently offering them at $12.00 each, which is $3.00 off the cover price and .60 cents cheaper than Amazon (before shipping).

So add one of those to your cart, pay for it through Amazon, and they will shoot me an email letting me know to get a book out to you. Feel free to email me if you do buy one and would like for it to be personalized. I’ll sign it and ship it to you within 24 hours!

Avery is the other cat that I acquired at the same time as Bon Jour.  Unlike Bo Bo, Avery jumped in the box and was ready to go back in 2000 when I went to pick up the cats one Saturday.  Unbeknownst to him, he was on his way to his new home.  He hissed at me for a few days and hid, but I knew he’d come around.  And he finally did, much quicker than Bo Bo.

Avery is a fat cat, but doesn’t eat a lot like you’d think he would.  He’s at least 20 pounds, maybe 25.  Unlike Bo Bo, he doesn’t like human food except for the occasional sip of milk if Bo Bo is having some.  Oh, and of course, he loves tuna fish juice too but frowns at kitty treats.

He prefers long naps on the bed, or on the mat by the back door, or under the blankets on the sofa. The laundry basket is a fun place to hide. He’ll bat at a piece of string or ribbon from time to time, but quickly becomes board with that game.  His signature mark is his little mole on his face and his head but.  To get your attention, or while you are already petting him, he’ll give you a nice head but.  He also likes to give you love bites, which can hurt if you aren’t expecting it.  His purr is very loud, so I assume he’s a very happy kitty.

You’d think he’s the dominate of the two, but Bon Jour will often pounce on Avery when he’s trying to sleep in the sun shine on the floor.  He gives out a wicked cry when Bon Jour is being mean to him.  Avery does not like the dogs because they chase him when he jumps down off the furniture.  He has been known to swat back at them, which often gets him in trouble because Bailey, the middle dog, will attack back.

Overall, he’s a laid back kitty that never causes trouble.

Get that camera out of her!  We’re napping!

J and I made a trip to Wild Birds Unlimited yesterday.  It’s a store devoted entirely to birds….books, feeders, waterers, seed, you name it.  They had it!  We’d never been before but a coworker kept telling me about it.

The staff was quite helpful.  We both later commented on how good and attentive they were.  We bought a squirrel guard for one of our feeders, a shepard’s hook for two other feeders we had not put out yet, a bird bath (which I’d been wanting to get for a year now), and a 20 pound bag of seed.

The seed must have been quite yummy because several friends came to visit one feeder we have on our back porch, which goes to prove some birds are Buddhists.

The squirrel guard worked cause guess who ended up at the temple?

Pets have always been an important part of my life.  They make me happy, and have always been something I look forward to coming home to each and every day.  No matter how bad the day went, a pet can quickly make you forget all about it.  J and I have several…cats, dogs, and fish.  So, I thought I’d spend a few posts introducing the other parts of our family that make up our lil household.

Bon Jour is the lucky first to be introduced.  He’s a mysterious kitty that I acquired from a coworker back in 2000.  She (the coworker) met a man on the internet, married him, and moved off to England.  With no one to take her two full grown aging cats, I came into work one day and found her crying.  No one wanted both of them, and no animal shelter or pet place could guarantee they wouldn’t be split up.  She wanted them to stay together, and knew Bon Jour would probably not survive being quarantined to go overseas.  Having never met this odd cat, I felt sorry for her and agreed to take both of them from her and keep them together.

I quickly learned WHY no one wanted both of them.  Bon Jour was a finicky cat who would not let anyone but her touch him.  If someone knocked on her door, he ran and hid under her bed.  Most people didn’t even know she had two cats. On the day I went to pick them up, I took Avery (the other cat who I will talk about next) home and had to come back later to get Bon Jour.  She could not coax him out from under the sink.  So, I left her alone with him.  She borrowed a neighbor’s crate (which was for a dalmatian) and called me several hours later when Bon Jour was ready to go.  After fighting to get the crate in my car and into my home, I pushed it up against my bed and opened the door.  Bon Jour quickly ran out and under my bed, and that’s where he stayed for about a month.

I put food on one side and a litter box on the other, and never saw him until one night when I was sitting at the computer.  Bon Jour, desperate for human contact, ventured out and took one look at me.  He jumped up on the desk with caution, but allowed me to gently stroke his neck.  We’ve been best friends ever since.

Now, Bon Jour, being a French kitty still had quite a bit of attitude, and still had all his claws.  He still ran when company came over, but I had a roommate that Bon Jour had to become accustomed to.  When another friend moved in for a few months, Bon Jour quickly adapted to being around men and being around more than one person.  His kitty shell was quickly broken, and although today he is still a bit timid, like all cats he goes off and does his own thing.  But he will come out and visit strangers now at least when we have company, taking his time to sniff them and rub on their feet and allow them to touch him.  That’s something he never did when my coworker friend owned him.

Bon Jour loves to sit at my feet and stretch up over my chair and lick my wrist while I’m typing, as he is doing right now.  He wants my attention and usually wants in my lap. He loves to watch birds in the window sill, but panics if he ventures outside onto the deck.  So, he never gets out much. His front claws were removed a few years ago in order to bring peace to the furniture.  He likes to eat pizza crust, Doritos chips, and Wendy’s French fries, and KFC chicken nibblies, all in very small portions of course. Don’t forget tuna can juice, and he will beg for a saucer of milk if you are standing in the kitchen.

To be such a fierce looking cat, supposedly a Maine coon, he has the saddest squeak for a meow, but he is a very loving cat that at the end of each day comes running to lay next to me on the bed when I go to sleep.  He’s my Bo Bo kitty!

In my Part 2 post, you’ll meet Avery.  He is Bon Jour’s brother, and was an entirely different cat than Bon Jour was when we first met.

Interesting story in the Times Online today about Creative Visions Bookstore of New York.  Not only is it a great survival story of an indie bookstore in today’s internet commerce world, but the birth of the store itself was a nice heartwarming tale. I say “was” because unfortunately this story was originally published in 2003.  The store closed in 2004.  Read the story of its last days here.  It’s probably something depressing like a Starbucks or a Baby Gap now.

Why does this matter? Because on today of all days, when we celebrate our country’s birth and independence, we conjure up thoughts of red, white, and blue blasts in the sky, the Statue of Liberty, bald eagles, soldiers in camo and stuck in foreign countries fighting for our freedom, watermelon and barbecue, children running with sparklers, George Washington, the Star Spangled Banner, our nation’s flag, Abe Lincoln, the list goes on and on….

But in today’s time when gas prices are soaring, people can’t afford their houses and their houses aren’t worth anything anyway because of a sad market, we make less but have more debt, we continue to push ourselves further faster and faster building better cell phones and interactive video games.  Technology has advanced us so quickly when it comes to communication, but we can’t even communicate with one another verbally.  Vowels are dead, IDK why.  We text. We IM.  We care more about the value of our property than we care about making our property a home.  Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?

I’m rambling, I know, but here’s my point….and I do have one!  We love our discount books and huge Amazon.com one-stop-shopping selections and free shipping that the man in brown brings right to your door.  We don’t have time to go to quaint shopping districts and browse.  We’re glad they are there, but we want bitter coffee, the same kind that everyone else is drinking.  We want to pay ten dollars for it too and get bad service, no service at all.  We want to hear ourselves say out loud “Viente Latte;” it makes us feel important.

Plow down those narrow roads, lined with trees and cute little shops lit with gaslit street lamps, with indie bookstores and beat nick coffee houses.  Who needs ‘em?  Put up a parking lot, the song says! I’ll read whatever Wal-Mart wants me to read.  I’ll drink whatever everyone else is drinking.  I want it fast.  I want it now.  Forget the independent business owner.  Who is that anyway?  He can go be a greeter at Wal-Mart.  Oh wait, we don’t talk to one another, remember?  When I walk in the door, maybe he can text a greeting to me.  WTWM!

So, years from now when your kids are grown and have kids of their own, will they still be celebrating the birth of our country today and ignoring the slow choking death of everything this nation built upon the very ideals of independence in the first place?  Or will they not have time to celebrate because they work for what was once an American business, but it was sold out at 65 dollars a share to some foreign nation who requires them to work today?

People, we are wiping away the American businesses, and I’m talking about the REAL American businesses.  Not the Wal-Marts, and Starbucks, and B&N’s.  That’s not America!  I’m not looking for some prairie bonnet wearing woman to serve me a pickle from a barrel and a mug of sarsaparilla, but do you remember the days when an attendant used to come out and pump your gas for you?  Remember the days when a young boy bagged your groceries and helped you out to the car with them?

Those days are long over!  But you asked for it!  We shut out our very own business owners and now we are overwrought with inflated prices and poor quality.  This is America.

Happy Independence Day!

Congratulations to Gary Ellis!  He’s the winner of a first edition signed copy of my new book, STEALING WISHES!

For those who didn’t win, or who might be tuning in late and didn’t get to sign up, there’s still lots of ways to get a copy.

First, visit your local bookstore and ask them to order a copy for you!

Second, visit Amazon.com and buy a copy there!

Or, B&N has it too.

Prefer to download it? Go here for the Ebook!  It’s only 5 dollars.

Got an Amazon Kindle Ereader? Click here!

Also, stay tuned to my website here because I’ve got more fun give aways coming!

Congrats again to Gary.  I’ll be emailing you soon asking for your shipping address!  And thanks to everyone who played along!