So I'm reading this at the bus station (yes, I own a car; I just hang out there to pick up teenage runaways) when some old guy comes up to me and goes "Is that about the House of Representatives? Ha ha!" That was way funnier than anything I had come up with, so I had no choice but to stab him. There's one more place I can't show my face for a while. Thanks, dick.

Anyway, the book is actually about this crazy haunted house that sports all these incomprehensible additions, hidden rooms, and doors and staircases that go no place. It's basically the Winchester House (oh, for fuck's sake; look it up), except these ghosts were all killed by the atomic bomb. That's actually a pretty decent idea for some horror, but the story just rambles all over creation and nothing much really happens. Well, except for a bunch of racism: all the nips who work at the place talk "flied lice" style, for example, and the main guy uses the word "nigger" every chance he gets. He doesn't actually call anybody a nigger, mind you; apparently he just likes slipping it into conversations because he can, sort of like a little kid who tells everyone "You shouldn't say FUCK because FUCK is a bad word so I never say FUCK." Seriously, dude, grow up. And what is with this clown laying everything in sight? Normally I'd say mad props to him, but truth be told he's sort of a tool and really doesn't deserve that kind of luck. At any rate, in the end it's all completely boring and lazy and a total waste of a cool idea. I did like this phrase the main guy's buddy came up with though: "post-feminist reactionary syndrome". Next time a chick you know is flipping out over some minor detail - like the fact that her car is missing, and you had it last - do me a favor and tell her that she has post-feminist reactionary syndrome, then let me know what happens. If she actually stops to look it up on her BlackBerry and/or gets even more pissed, I'll know it's worth pulling out every once in a while.