The Roger's Fine Foods, Grain Belt, and brought to you by Barrett's Barleycorn NCAA bracket presented by Wild Bill's is a moderate success, with 25 entries in total.

As such, and after deciding upon a $10 entry fee, and assuming everyone pays, here is the prize pool:

1st Place--$150 and $5 of Wild Bill's Jerky
2nd Place--$60 and one short stack of hotcakes from Roger's Fine Foods, where pancakes are their "specailty"
3rd Place--$30 and a 1/4 two-four of Grain Belt Premium
Last Place--money back and 1 cocktail of their choice at Barrett's Barleycorn

This is contingent upon collecting from everyone entered.

Collections: Shockingly, the only person I have collected from is MIB (Rick). I know. I can't believe it either.

If you are from out of town, I don't know what to tell you, other than not making payment or arrangements will result in a DQ. We can do Paypal if necessary or work something out.

Enjoy the games everyone! And good luck! From all our sponsors!

Labels: Barrett's Barelycorn, NCAA Tournament, out of town people, Shameless Plug

My brother over at a-peterson.blogspot.com had his book come out this month. I am ordering one today. Below is his sales pitch for why you shoud own this book, and not included is that he is both a Kansas City Royals and Miami Dolphins fan. Here it is:

Forgive me for this mass email, but I wanted to let you know that my little book My Untimely Death is now available from Subito Press. It’s just a small paperback, but I thought I should tell you about it.

First of all, if you'd like to order a copy, specify the title and send $10 to:

Subito PressDepartment of EnglishUniversity of Colorado at BoulderHellems 101226 UCBBoulder, CO 80309-0226

The book, which won their 2007 fiction prize, is a collection of 15 short prose pieces, each one a kind of story about (and this is according to the back cover) “touching but absurd deaths.” That makes it sound a little macabre, but it's actually, I hope, not at all. I don't even know what to say about it. Here, listen to the blurbers:

“Wildly funny, poignant, exhilarating meditations that fracture and reassemble everything we know and believe about living and dying. Adam Peterson reinvents the notion of story here, dismantling the lines between genres and creating a gorgeous new kind of prose with a voice that is simply irresistible. You can't stop reading this book again and again.”
—Jonis Agee, author of The River Wife

“Audacious, ambitious and auspicious, My Untimely Death is the record of its own impossibility. Razor-sharp and brave, this is a remarkable debut.”
—Jeffrey DeShell, author of The Trouble with Being Born: A Novel

Those were, of course, coerced and far too kind (and possibly sarcastic), but I hope they give you a better idea what the book is about. You can also check out the Subito Press website for an excerpt (www.subitopress.org) though you should know their website is practically impossible to navigate even if it does look nice. If you decide to brave the website, my book is the one on the top left. All you have to do is get the bird up there to read about it. Yes, it’s as crazy as it sounds.

Other things you should know about the book:
1) It's a great gift for the holidays
2) It's possibly not such a great gift for funerals
3) It's perfect bound
4) It's 56 pages long
5) Its ISBN number is 0-9801098-1-7 (I don't know why, but I feel like I got a good ISBN number).

The press, which is out of the University of Colorado, did a great job, and I couldn't be happier with it. Anyway, I wanted to send around this email to let everyone know about it. For more information, I'll continue to have some pictures and information (and maybe another excerpt or two) up on my blog (www.a-peterson.blogspot.com).

If you read it, I hope you enjoy it and be sure to let me know what you think. Also, if you like, please feel free to forward this email and help me spread the word.

Thanks and all the best,

Adam

Labels: Adam Peterson, Help Pay my brothers rent for January, Shameless Plug