The emergency medical technicians have
been called to a hotel in South Beach, responding to call concerning a
twenty-two year old female who has swallowed a "mix of vodka, Red
Bull, hydrocodone, birdseed, and stool softener." A rather typical
call for South Beach with the exception of the appearance of Bang Abbott,
an overweight, intrusive paparazzo. He wants to have exclusive right to
the pictures of the woman on the stretcher. However, when the EMT's wheel
out the woman, he realizes that this is not the person he came to shoot.
His real target, Cherry Pye, a lip synching "singer" with serious
drug, alcohol, and sex issues, has been whisked out the back of the hotel
and is on her way to rehab (again). Bang has been tricked by Cherry's handlers,
who employ Ann DeLusia, an actress who is a spitting image of Cherry, and
is considered an "undercover stunt double." Cherry has no idea
that Ann exists, Ann is used any time Cherry is too wasted to make public
appearances or to cover for her when she is in rehab.
The use of Ann as a double is brilliant
until she crashes her car on her way to Key West for some much deserved
rest and relaxation. Rescued by a man known as "Skink," a former
governor of Florida and who is now, for lack of a better term, an "eco
terrorist," Ann connects with Skink, who then helps Ann get out of
some very sticky situations and, ultimately, away from Cherry Pye and her
entourage.
In Star
Island, Carl Hiaasen turns his
eye on what passes for celebrity in America, but adds his usual criticism
of Florida real estate developers and certain types of people that inhabit
the Sunshine State. Regular readers will enjoy the appearance of Skink,
who has a very effective and hilarious method of dealing with one unscrupulous
real estate developer, and two other characters. All should relish Ann,
the small voice of reason and sanity in the insane circle of people that
inhabit Cherry's world.
Hiaasen does an admirable job of skewering
the music industry and "celebrity," but he seems to have lost
a step. He should have pushed the boundaries farther. Also, other than
Skink, who inhabits the novel but not to the extent of Hiassen's
better works, Ann is the only character with whom the reader will connect.
Hiassen should have spent more time with her, she is the perfect foil for
the insanity and a joy to follow.
Star
Island isn't one of Hiassen's
best works, but it is better than most fiction. In fact, you will discover
that he has grabbed your attention with a fun, entertaining novel.
Lotusphere: Will it Jumpstart the IBM Lotus Brand?
Fri, Jan 13th 2012 9:30a Gregg Eldred Now in its 19th year, Lotusphere will once again attempt to make up the ground Lotus Notes lost as a result of shifts in strategy at IBM and changes in the market in the past few years. But with Lotus Notes facing an uphill battle, five days at "the happiest place on Earth" will have to go a long way.
. . . But even with the help of the Connect conference, some in the industry are concerned that Lotusphere '12 may be too little, too late.
Sandy Carter is quoted, but without the exclamati [read] Keywords: ibm
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Are Your Twitter Followers Yours? Or Your Company's?
Tue, Dec 27th 2011 8:20p Gregg Eldred In 2006 Noah Kravitz went to work for Phonedog, a news site specializing in mobile phone related news. During his four years as a writer for Phonedog, his Twitter profile, Phonedog_Noah, picked up 17,000 followers. When he left the company last October, he was told that he could keep the account, provided he tweeted about Phonedog once in a while. When he left, Kravitz changed the profileâs name to NoahKravitz, and proceeded to continue tweeting â including the occasional mention of Ph [read] Keywords: mobile
profile
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Where are the PlayBooks?
Mon, Dec 19th 2011 10:00p Gregg Eldred Ah, the irony: over the past few weeks even RIM has admitted that the BlackBerry PlayBook is so unloved it canât even give it away, and now $1.7m-worth of the 7-inch slates have actually been stolen. A truck transporting 22 pallets of the PlayBook to Ontario, Canada, was parked up for the driver to take a rest break, The Herald Bulletin reports, when it was stolen by person or persons unknown.
More>
"Police said they have no suspects." Of course not, who wants to admit that they ha [read] Keywords: blackberry
rim
Microsoft Exec: Google's Problems in L.A. Wouldn't Have Happened to Us
Mon, Dec 19th 2011 10:00p Gregg Eldred From an interview with Tom Rizzo, Microsoft's senior director for online services, in Redmind Channel Partner.
RCP: Gartner recently endorsed Google Apps for Business as enterprise ready. Has that upped the competitive stakes, as far as you're concerned?
Rizzo: You know, the interesting thing about that Gartner report, I believe one of the 10 references listed was the city of L.A., and the LAPD has pulled out of deploying Google Apps. So I'd read through that list with a fine-toothed com [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
email
enterprise
google
microsoft
office
We Could've Had a Great Economy
Thu, Dec 15th 2011 7:50a Gregg Eldred I suppose you could consider this a "political" post. With Hermain Cain as President, our economy could've really took off. [read] Keywords:
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RIM in the News (and it has nothing to do with the PlayBook)
Mon, Dec 12th 2011 4:15p Gregg Eldred New details are emerging about the rowdy behaviour of two Research In Motion executives who were fired for disrupting an intercontinental flight â including that they managed to chew their way out of restraints after being handcuffed by crew members.
George Campbell, 45, and Paul Alexander Wilson, 38, each pleaded guilty to mischief for disrupting an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing last week.
The plane landed instead in Vancouver, where a court later ordered them to pay $72,00 [read] Keywords: policies
research in motion
rim
IBM Documentation Needs Help
Wed, Dec 7th 2011 9:01p Gregg Eldred Redbooks, for all intents and purposes, are dead. At least as far as IBM Lotus is concerned. The future, we've been told, are wikis, blogs, and InfoCenters. True, most of the IBM Lotus wikis have been populated with the contents of existing Redbooks, however the information in the wikis and InfoCenters is a hit-or-miss proposition.
Let's take a look at one example of a miss.
Installing and configuring the IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway is a lot of fun, the documentation makes it appear a pai [read] Keywords: ibm
ldd
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database
db2
google
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wiki
