Kindle Daily Deal!

Woo-hoo! I Have a Bad Feeling About This is the Kindle Daily Deal today! Get it for $1.99!

Click HERE! 

My Fake New Novel!

Yesterday on Facebook and Twitter I posted the cover to my fake new novel. I’d post it here, but it’s funnier in context, so head on over to Brian Keene’s blog and check out his new book announcement!

http://www.briankeene.com/2014/08/19/pressure-with-anticipated-f-a-q/

Dangerous Dan’s Book Blog

Dan at Dangerous Dan’s Book Blog embarked on a 30-day trial of Kindle Unlimited, where for that month he read nothing but the available titles, calculated how much he was saving, and reported on each book. During this experiment, he picked four of my books: Wolf Hunt, Stalking You Now, Kutter, and Kumquat. 

Check out his series of blog posts RIGHT HERE. 

10 Reasons You Should Read KUMQUAT

Oh, sure, YOU don’t need 10 reasons to read Kumquat. You’ve already read it. But maybe you know somebody else who needs extra motivation. If so, direct them to this handy blog:

http://barklesswagmore.booklikes.com/post/935447/kumquat-by-jeff-strand

The Saga of the Gummy Bear Brats

NOTE: I am usually a passionate believer that it’s “gummi” instead of “gummy,” but this time I’m going with the spelling on the packaging.

There I was, being driven by my stepfather Paul from the Minnesota airport to my mom’s cabin in Wisconsin. Paul asked if my wife and I needed to stop for anything, but we assured him that we were fine.

Until…

The billboard was for Grundhofen’s, a shop that specialized in bratwurst. Including, as the sign proudly proclaimed, the world famous GUMMY BEAR BRAT.

When you see a billboard like this, here are your available options:

1. Stop and get a gummy bear brat.

There are no other available options. So we pulled off the highway and went to Hugo, Minnesota. I fully expected this to be a fake-out, like when I got “spaghetti and meatballs ice cream” that turned out to just be regular ice cream in the shape of spaghetti and meatballs. I figured it would just be a vaguely bratwurst-shaped gummy candy. Nope. In the same way that you’d have a jalapeno brat, they indeed had gummy bear brats.

The dark spots in the picture are gummy bears mixed with the meat:

They were only available in packs of six, which is a pretty big commitment for something where you expect to take a bite and go “Bleeaaarrrrgh!” but what was I going to do, not get a gummy bear brat? They also had other weird-ass flavors like Skittles and Grape Kool-Aid, but there was no need for this expedition to get out of control. Here I am, standing proudly with my purchase.

 

And so we arrived at the cabin. My mom did not seem as enamored by the idea of the gummy bear brats as everybody else, but we threw ’em on the grill, one each for me, Paul, and my wife Lynne Hansen, who may not want a website link in this particular case.

The gummy bear brats are the ones in the middle. You know you’re hungry.

And so we ate them. They were………..not as weird as I thought. The gummy bears completely melt on the grill, so you’ve basically got regular brats with small sugary pockets. I’m not saying it tasted normal, but there was no need to bleargh and, ultimately, they were completely consumed with a bit of shame but no gastrointestinal distress.

Will I have gummy bear brats again? No, because I only got them in the first place so I could post about it on Facebook and Twitter. But if you’re ever in the vicinity of Hugo, and your tummy is rumbling, maybe you’ll make the same choice I did.

BEAR!!!

This is the bear that almost mauled and/or devoured me.

Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. What actually happened was that I was visiting my mom’s cabin in Wisconsin. I was sitting on the end of the dock by the lake, reading a Dennis Lehane novel, when I heard a rustling in the bushes right next to the dock. I assumed it was my mom or my wife, so I didn’t think “Eeeek! There’s a sinister rustling in the bushes!” 

And then a bear walked out. It looked at me and stopped, as if to say “Whoa! Didn’t expect to see YOU there, buddy!” As it stood there, I had two thoughts:

1. The odds of this bear actually walking onto the dock were all but non-existent. Despite what you may have read in my novel I Have A Bad Feeling About This, available now from Sourcebooks, bears do not just charge at people. 

2. Still…there was a frickin’ bear thirty feet away.

I sort of wanted to take a picture of it, but there are times when it’s best to devote your full attention to the situation that is occurring in front of you, and I didn’t want my legacy to be that of the dumbass whose final action was to take a picture of a bear. So I just sat there, and after a few moments the bear went on his merry way.

Once the bear was a safe distance away, I hurried up to the cabin to make sure my wife and mom didn’t miss their chance at a bear sighting. Then a text from my mom came through, informing me that there was a bear outside and that I should stay on the dock until it left.

Anyway, my wife took the picture above from the safety of the cabin, and no parts of me got eaten by a bear, so all is well.