Tactical Vantage - For all your gun needs!

If you love guns, here's a great website to visit, Tactical Vantage!  They carry the following items:

Firearm accessories and parts
Replacement stocks
Gun magazines and clips
Tactical rifle accessories
Tactical shotgun accessories
California legal magazines
and more!

This is THE website to visit for all your gun needs.  Who doesn't love guns?  Here in Texas, even the liberals love guns, so why not buy all this stuff before Obama takes it all away?  Okay, he probably won't take any of it away, but why take chances, right?

Here is the link to their website.

Video - Eric Clapton - Crossroads (3/17/2013)

Eric Clapton performing "Crossroads" at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin on 3/17/2013.

Eric Clapton in Austin!

Eric Clapton came to Austin on Sunday night, and since I had never seen him live in concert before, I decided to check him out.  He's always been on my "concert bucket list" but for some reason, during my prime concert-going years (the 90's), I wasn't that big of a fan enough to see him.  I always thought he was a great guitar player, and the work he's done with The Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and the Dominos, Blind Faith and especially on Roger Waters first solo album (The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking) is very impressive.  For some reason though, I just never really got into his solo stuff.  But...times change, people get older and more mellow, and now I find myself liking a lot of stuff that I would never have listened to 20 years ago.

The 2 hour show Sunday at the Frank Erwin Center was mostly filled with 70's classics (Lay Down Sally, Wonderful Tonight, I Shot the Sheriff, Cocaine) and old Robert Johnson blues numbers (Crossroads, Love in Vain, Stones in My Passway, Little Queen of Spades.)  Clapton does have a brand new album out (Old Sock), but I don't think he did a single song from it, not that anyone would have cared.  This was an audience that just wanted to relive the 70's.  I was too young to have seen Clapton in the 70's, but I've heard many of his live recordings from that time, and I was hoping to see some of that guitar wizardry on display.  Clapton has still got it, and his solos on songs like "Got to Get Better in a Little While" and "I Shot the Sheriff" were incredible.  However, there were many times when he let his other guitarist, Doyle Bramhall, take the lead.  Actually, too many times in my opinion.  It almost seemed like Clapton was just trying to pass the torch to the new guy.  He also let his keyboard player (Paul Carrack) take lead vocals a few too many times as well (is "Tempted" the only hit Paul Carrack ever wrote?)

Still, these were only minor complaints compared to my biggest complaint of the night.  The Clapton signature tune "Layla" was played in the horrendous, unplugged lounge version made famous from his "Unplugged" album.  I hate that version and I was really hoping to hear it in its original, electric form.  No such luck.  However, from what I have seen on YouTube, he played the electric version on the first night of his tour, then when he hit Houston, he didn't play it all (imagine how pissed off those fans must have been.)  For Austin, though, we got "Layla", albeit the tepid version.

Clapton has said that this tour would likely be his last.  Not because he doesn't enjoy playing live, but because he doesn't like airports and going through security.  You'd like after 40 years of playing and touring he'd be used to it by now.  I'm lucky I had the chance to see him.

David's Review of "An American Teacher in Taiwan"

Now that my books have been out for a few months on Amazon, and some of them are selling fairly well, the reviews are starting to come in.  Someone I know told me that I shouldn't respond to them, especially the negative ones, since it looks tacky, so I haven't.  Well...maybe I'll respond here on the blog, but not on Amazon.  I did receive my first bad review a couple of weeks ago for "Interstate 10" where the reviewer said it was the "worse book I have read in ages."  He then goes on to say that it was "too disturbing" and that  he couldn't follow the plot, and he didn't like it because he "lives near Interstate 10."  It's probably the dumbest review I've ever read...but what can you do?

Amazon seems to have this crazy policy where you have to actually buy the product that you are reviewing, or else they won't publish your review, so I'm going to publish my friend David's (the one that lives in Taiwan) review.  He's read the book, but didn't buy it.  It seems to be a positive review, but written in his typical style.  Anyway, here it is, and you can also read it on his own personal blog:

"An American Teacher In Taiwan” by Ken Berglund is based on the famous blog of the same title and author. It is advertised as a guide to teaching English in Taiwan. I feel this part is misleading as much has changed since the author escaped to his homeland. Even if the labyrinth of Chinese bureaucracy was somehow the same today as it was five years ago, or even five months ago, no single person can give anyone a comprehensive view of the horrors that await them should they feel the need to follow in his footsteps. The arbitrary rules and regulations change from person to person and are enforced at whim.

However, this e-book is also advertised as “One writer’s experience about living, working, dating, finding love, and raising kids in a foreign country.” As a personal memoir, I cannot question its veracity. I can only confirm that many of the obstacles in adapting to life in a Chinese culture that the author experienced are universal to any American, or possibly even Canadian, in similar circumstances.

Mr Berglund relates an incident wherein he is induced to enter a “special” KTV by women of liberal morals and is only able to leave the establishment after forfeiting an unacceptably large sum of cash. Any robust red blooded male who has set foot in any Chinese country for more than twelve hours can relate to this situation.

If you want to know what kind of paperwork you must fill out and have stamped in triplicate to live in the Land of Scooter, this book will not help you. If you want to know what the people are like and how different their customs are from your own, this book covers a broad range of expatriate topics.

Some would say its range of topics is too broad. A guide to living in a foreign land or a travel guide should have a more narrow focus. But as a memoir, there is an even balance between personal insights (the part about his erectile dysfunction brought on by too many betel nuts) and general anecdotes (Chinamen be wacky). For this reason among others, I think this should be marketed as a memoir and not any kind of handbook.

While this e-book is probably more interesting to Americans who have lived or are now living in a foreign country, it is written in such a casual narrative that even a xenophobe who has never set foot outside of Itawamba, Mississippi might find it enjoyable.

I give it five muffins.

Now On Sale! "The Secrets of An Intelligent Consumer" by Leon Forte

On sale now for Amazon Kindle, "The Secrets of an Intelligent Consumer" by Leon Forte.

Newly reedited for easy reading and understanding.

Easy techniques for the average person to save $200,000 over a working life without scrimping or sacrificing.

Buy the same goods and services you're using while saving large amounts of money.

Shop in many of the same stores right in your area.

Have more cash in your wallet and have more money saved.  Owe less money.

Anybody with a high school education can easily learn to become An Intelligent Consumer.

Everything is covered from food, clothes, and cars to buying or remodeling a house.

Learn to spot when you're being played for the fool.

In today's bad economy, I would imagine this book would be very helpful to consumers.  I also noticed this thing is 633 (!) pages long.  Don't be fooled by some of the other books out there with a similar topic that are just thrown together and are usually less than 10 pages long.  This is the real deal!

You can buy it now at Amazon for $4.99.  Just click on the link here.

Ramblings #21: Blogs, Books, and Ads

Ok...so I just received this email yesterday from "Anonymous":

"You have to start putting up more content about your life or you are going to lose readers."

It made me wonder, what is it, exactly, that you the readers want me to write about?  If I write a blog post about a book I just published, that IS content about my life.  That is what I'm doing at the moment.  That is what I have been spending most of my time on since early December working on.  At least I'm sharing that with you, the reader, rather than just giving the blog a two month hiatus.

I write the blog as a hobby.  I make no money from it.  The ads you see on the edges of the screen, known as "Adsense" in the blogger world, bring in (literally) pennies a month.  The only ads that actually bring in some real money (though still not a lot) are the ones I put up myself as a blog post.  So when you see those, don't freak out, it's just a way to help other writers and make a few extra bucks.

I've been writing this blog (and the Taiwan one) for almost five years.  Any long time reader would know that I'm not always prolific.  I go through periods of writing a lot of material, and periods of writing next to nothing.  I have actually written quite a lot lately, it's just gone into the books, rather than the blog.  I've published 5 books within the last two months, and there is no way I can continue that pace.  When things start to slow down again, I will return to the blog.  I always vowed that I would never be the type of blogger who just writes nonsense about what they had for breakfast or what dream they had the previous night.  When that's all there is to write about, it's time to just give it up.  If I don't have something interesting to write about, I'd rather not write anything at all.

Now on Sale for Amazon Kindle: "In the Midst of Secrets" by Katherine Vogel

Now on sale for the Amazon Kindle: "In the Midst of Secrets" by Katherine Vogel.

Synopsis:
"Her father was an intimidating man who held fast to his belief in his African heritage; that black should not marry white to avoid racial confusion.  She was in love with a white man whose mother wished to keep her family's heritage intact by not crossbreeding with another race.
Tiffany only wanted to be with Jonathan but had to face a father who was hell bent on controlling his family's every move.  Revelations would take him off his high horse as he realized all his family members kept secrets from him, secrets they knew he could not tolerate.  The showdown would bring a proud and sometimes unreasonable man to his knees.
A son's quest to find the truth would reveal a secret so crushing that the family may never recover.  "A secret that was buried for over thirty years."

Sounds interesting.  The racist father sounds a little like my own (deceased) father-in-law.  If this were an Asian-white story, I'd think she was writing about my life.

You can buy the story by clicking on this link.