Now, random Internet stuff I have found while browsing from this fine city. The headline of the day:

FBI: Man tried to hire assassin, pin murder on cat.

(AP)  EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. – Federal investigators helped by a conscientious paroled killer say they foiled a plot to abduct, extort and electrocute a wealthy man in a scheme they say borrowed elements from a television show and sought to blame the killing on the planned victim’s cat.

Now to board my next flight. It’s been fun, Windy City — thanks! Next time I’ll try to stay longer than two hours.

Note: Requests to capture Robert Redford/Peter Sarsgaard/Rashida Jones will be rejected. Friends and family already have dibs.

On film, people. Capture them on film. Sheesh. What did you think I meant? Just because I have a T-shirt that says, “Everything I need to know, I learned from the people trapped in my basement,” is no reason to take everything I say literally.

(PS – Mom, I’ve poked air holes in the crate, so your gift will arrive in good shape.)

Author Interview: Meg Gardiner

GJR: It always takes us by surprise that you can (and do) kill off your characters so easily. We have to ask, does it hurt you as much as it hurts us?

MG: It’s not easy at all. It’s terrible. But I write thrillers. This means the characters will find themselves in danger, facing life and death situations. And if they always survive, where’s the suspense? When I first started writing, I protected my characters, because I liked them. Though I put them in danger, I knew in the back of my mind that they’d be okay. I never truly put them at risk, and that meant that I never truly took a story as far as it could go. I stunted its possibilities from the beginning.

Read the rest.

Where am I? Please be as specific as possible.

UPDATE: Answer after the jump.

It’s Parliament Square, London.

Or not.

In any case, I’ve toyed with the header and sidebar, to mess with your heads and because I like to keep up to date with kids these days. Those wacky kids, always Facemiming and Tweetsquawking and such. I’ve added a Twitter feed, so you can glimpse what I’m up to in 140 characters. Yes, social media is coalescing into a huge hive mind. Its various forms are banding together into a seamless and unstoppable whole. Resistance is futile.

Wow, I need to put down the William Gibson and turn off Star Trek. And probably drink less coffee.

How’s your Monday?

And yes, I was in search of coffee. Desperately.

UPDATE: Okay, this one was easy. It’s Chinatown, San Francisco.

Should Authors and Agents Weigh In on Citizen Reviews?

Is it time for a Miss Manners intervention? These days it’s tricky to keep up with the name-calling surrounding citizen reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, and Twitter.

In other words, this isn’t powerhouse publishers sniping at reviewers from Publishers Weekly or the New York Times. It’s authors venting at readers who failed to rave about their books.

In the biggest recent dustup, over a one-star January 13 Goodreads review of Kiera Cass’s The Selection – a YA novel about a lottery that allowed 35 teenage girls to compete, a la The Bachelor, for a handsome prince – the war of words got heated enough that one commenter referred to a citizen reviewer as “that bitch.”

My thoughts:

1. Writers: Rise above. Unless a malicious troll is deliberately trying to destroy a book or its author with diatribes and libel, leave it alone. Resist the urge to slash back. No matter how infuriating it can be to read a lousy review, don’t yell and call names. To the outside world, it comes off like a forty-something engaging in a screaming match with a six-year-old. Everybody who sees it thinks: Who’s the adult here?

Clue: Be the adult.

2. In the annals of reviewer-bashing, this dustup is small potatoes. For raging, out-of-control writer vitriol, nobody can top Aaron Sorkin, who not only waded into the comment forums on Television Without Pity but then wrote an entire episode of The West Wing that ripped apart online discussion groups. (Search for the phrase “sitting in a muu-muu and smoking Parliament Lights.”)

3. Remember what an actual, serious problem looks like: Salman Rushdie has pulled out of the Jaipur Literary Festival because intelligence sources warned him that underworld figures were sending assassins to kill him.

Don’t wait, just head over to Awful Library Books and enjoy.

A Year of Awful: Best of 2011.

(Full size image here.)

Thanks for the link to this chart, Grammar Monkeys.

Name the location. One of my novels is partially set here.