I happen to be a huge fan of both the Post Apocalyptic genre, as well as the Zombie genre. When I saw the preview for I am Legend, I was immediately intrigued. The thing I didn’t get from the movie preview was that the rest of the world had been turned into vampires, I thought that something had just wiped out everyone, and he was the only one left. Once I heard that there were Vampires, well that made it even more appealing.

I was amazed that the book was written back in the 50′s, and that the current movie is actually the third adaptation of the story. Art and I were talking about the story, and he’s seen the other two movies. Anyway, I decided to pick up the book.

If a movie has been made for a story, I usually like to watch the movie before I read the book. This way I can enjoy both, if I don’t, then I’m generally disappointed by the movie. This rule doesn’t apply to Stephen King stories. In my experience, it’s better to see his movies, and skip the book altogether. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I’ve been burned by Stephen King too many times.

Anyway, back to "I am Legend". In the story, a plague has killed just about everyone, and those who haven’t been killed are turned into vampires. Without giving too much away, the dead become re-animated, and are some type of vampire / zombie hybrid. They aren’t terribly intelligent, want to eat human flesh, and can’t come out in the sun light. What happened to those who survive are something that I’ll let you read about on your own.

The main character seems to be the lone survivor of the plague, and the story revolves around his day to day struggles, trying to survive. He has to keep himself protected, while still maintaining the necessities of life. His biggest challenges seem to be the taunting of the vampires, dealing with the loss of his family, and the realization that he’s the only human left.

Richard Matheson, the author, tries to explain the scientific reason for the classic vampire attributes, the fear of sunlight, aversion to the cross and garlic, etc.

We get to see some of what life was like before the plague, and the events leading up to that point are alluded to. I don’t want to give it away, but they do seem interesting, and I would have liked to read more about that "world".

The main story is about 170 pages, and then the rest of the book is short stories. Some of them are interesting, and some of them aren’t very good.

All in all, this was a great story, and I’m really glad I read it. It helped to get me back into reading for enjoyment.

Posted in Books, fiction, Vampires, Zombies 9 Comments »

I went to a LAN Party on Saturday, and boy was that a blast. I was thinking today that I need to spruce up my desktop again, I rarely see my background, so I keep forgetting to change the wallpaper, or to have a wallpaper at all.

Anyway, I found Warvan’s Flickr page, and wow, there are some really great wallpapers there. I grabbed the screenshot to the left real quick, but he also has a ton of Team Fortress 2 wallpapers, and you have to look at the Call of Duty 4 wallpapers. Some really great looking stuff to give your desktop a new look.

I’m generally not all that big on customizing the look of my desktop, aside from what icons are there. I don’t usually change the color scheme either. I’m usually more of a function over form type of guy.

Considering how much time I spend on a computer, which is a whole lot, I should make it look a little nicer.

I Hope you enjoy these wallpapers, and please feel free to send me any of your favorite wallpaper sites.

Posted in FPS, Games, Personal-Computing, Team Fortress, Wallpapers No Comments »

Aside from the witty banter on Kellymentology, Kellypea also has a terrific food site called Sass and Veracity, I mean really terrific. I don’t even want to talk about the thoughts that ran through my head when I saw her post about pancakes.

Well, FoodBuzz is having a competition, and Kellypea is in it. I really encourage you to go over and check out Sass and Veractity, and also to vote using the button at the top right of her blog.

Good Luck Kellypea!

Posted in Cooking, LinkLove 2 Comments »

Let me just say that I think the writers are getting the short end of the stick, and not only are they justified in striking, but I want them to squeeze every last penny out of those Hollywood fat cats.

That being said, man I love that there isn’t a darn thing on TV to watch. I really enjoy some television shows, but I would enjoy them more if they didn’t take any time to watch. I personally have no idea what show airs on any particular day, let alone what time it comes on.

All I know is I press DVR button twice, and I see what has been recorded. If nothing is there, then I don’t watch anything. If something is there, then I’ll watch it.

I’ve made many attempts lately to really trim down the amount of TV that I watch. I ask myself if I would really miss a show, or if I really look forward to seeing that show. Most of the time the answers are "no", and I stop watching it.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy watching some of them, which I did, it’s just that they don’t really add much to my life, so why burn the time to watch them?

Last night, I realized that there hasn’t been anything on my DVR in quite awhile. Why is that I wonder? Oh yea, that writer strike.

That explains why I was able to read "I am Legend", as well as many of the short stories in that same book. That also explains why I have been able to play so much Civ, and watch a couple of my Netflix movies.

Of course, if the writers stay on strike, then I guess there won’t be anymore books or movies, but I’m sure that is going to take awhile, not to mention that I haven’t read any fiction books in so long it isn’t even funny.

Maybe I should cancel my cable. I mean, all the good series come out on DVD anyway, right?

Posted in Rambling, TV No Comments »

I wanted to give a brief explanation of what has been sucking every spare moment out of my life lately.

For the last several years, I really hadn’t played any computer games. Then I bought Half Life 2 just before Fortress Forever came out, and The Orange Box (Amazon Link)so that I could play Team Fortress 2.

So Team Fortress 2 has been eating up a bit of my time since.

Then, along comes Civilization 4 (Amazon Link). If you haven’t played any of the Civilization Series, let me just say that you are missing out. If you have played them, then you may be able to write a paper on addiction.

Civilization is a terrific strategy game where you are responsible for, you guessed it, a Civilization. You determine what technologies you are going to pursue, you found your cities, build improvements, and military units.

You also deal with other civilizations, trade technology and resources, and wage war.

These games are just so much fun because of the millions of ways that a game can go. You can play online, you can play with your wife or significant other over the LAN, or you can even play by email.

The game is a steal at $35.00, you’ll be playing forever. I skipped right over Civ 3, because about every 9 months to a year, we’ll break out Civ 2, install it, and play like crazy for a few months. I didn’t even realize there was a Civ 4 until recently. I bought a copy for my wife, then I became hooked again, and I bought a second copy for me. I’m seriously hooked now.

Seriously, I wake up in the morning and check my email to see if any of my email games have come in. If they have, I play them and send them off. After the kids go to bed, I play it all night, until I can force myself to turn it off. Then I lay in bed thinking about Civ.

I know, it’s sick. I’ll get through it though.

I need to put myself on a Civ Diet.

Did You Need Any More Reasons to Buy It?

Civilization is one of those gateway games that you can use to get your non-game playing spouse into, and then turn them onto other games. My wife never played any computer games before we were married, but I introduced her to Civilization (I think the original), and that’s all she wrote. Give it some thought. Today it’s Civ 4, Tomorrow it’s Quake 8.

OK, maybe not Quake, but how about Starcraft 2?

Posted in Games 10 Comments »