Does my family know me or what? Looking at the picture now, I’m thinking I should have arranged these in this order:

Mummy3 - Zombie Survival Guide - Fallout 3

This way I would have a Movie about the Undead, then a book about a Undead Apocalypse, and finally a game about life after a Nuclear Apocalypse.

So far, I’m already spending way too much time playing Fallout 3, and The Mummy 3 wasn’t as good as the movies before it.

I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a new year!

Posted in Fun, Christmas, Movies, Books, Games No Comments »

I’m sure that all of you are familiar with George Orwell, and most of you have probably read his writing. I know that I read “Animal Farm” and “1984” in school, then again later.

Although the classics stick with me, I hadn’t really explored any of his other writings, but looking through the bibliography in the link above, I already see many things that I would like to read.

Britain’s “The Orwell Prize”, an award for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries, in blog format. The Website is The Orwell Diaries.

Besides the fact that it’s a look into the life of a great writer, one interesting aspect is that the diaries start on August 9th, 1938, and the blog was started on August 9th, 2008, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

If you’re interested in reading more about the diaries, read the blog’s about page. I know I’m interested in reading the blog, and seeing what Orwell’s thoughts were. I hope you’ll join me.

Posted in History, Interesting, Books, WebSites, LinkLove No Comments »

I was supposed to go see the Foo Fighters Tuesday (July 15th, 2008), and luckily I happened to check Red Rock’s web site, because I saw that the concert has been put off for a couple of months due to illness.

Although I was a little disappointed, it wasn’t such a big deal. With family visiting, we’ve just been running around like crazy, and I didn’t relish the idea of driving so far away, and then driving back in the wee hours of the morning.

Yet, the babysitter had already been arranged, so why not take advantage of that?

I planned a fun filled evening with my wife, and the first stop was the book store. I buy her a book now and then when she needs something to read, but there’s nothing like browsing the bookstore to find something that you’ve never heard of, but that looks really good.

While I was at the bookstore, I ran across one of my favorite series, as well as some other work by the same author. That was my inspiration for this post.

The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman

Book 1 - Black Sun Rising

Book 2 - When True Night Falls

Book 3 - Crown of Shadows

These are some of the best fantasy books I’ve read. Mankind leaves earth, and ends up on a planet where thoughts are unknowingly shaping the planets energy, creating what we think about.

This may sound great, but all of the popular monster stories that we’re told start creating the monsters that used to be fictional. The use of machinery becomes impossible, because worrying that it won’t work, makes it not work. Thinking that your gun may backfire, makes it backfire.

Mankind is reduced to using only the simple tools that our minds can easily grasp, swords, axes, saws, etc.

After a long time, our origins have been forgotten, and mankind has just continued on with their lives. The end result is the medieval world of swords and sorcery that is the backdrop for the story.

My wife was never into reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but I talked her into giving these books a try. Now she’s hooked and she pretty much only reads fantasy now.

Photo: "Bleacher Seats" by Kerry A Adamo

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Shaftoe’s Haikus come

Plentiful in first pages

None after. Blame Morphine?

According to Wiki How, those lines don’t technically qualify, since they aren’t relating an abstract concept, nor it is about imagery or nature. If you haven’t read the book, then you probably won’t get it.

As I mentioned in my “Books I would like to Read” post, I’m working on Cryptonomicon right now. Great book so far! I really love Stepehnson’s writing. There are a  bunch of books that I am going to put at the top of the list that I have already read, but want to read again, and Snow Crash, also by Stephenson, is one of them.

The downfall of Cryptonimicon is that it is a lot of words. The book is over 900 pages, and it has to be one of the smallest fonts that I’ve seen in a book. Really, I’m not getting old, the writing is small. I’m about a third of the way through it, but it could be months before I finish.

One thing from the book that puzzled me, and I discussed it a really strange guy I know, is that the Japanese are referred to as Nipponese, and I guess it is accurate, at least for the time frame. Evidently the Japanese referred to their homeland as Nippon. Or at least they did in the World War II Era, I don’t know if that is still true. At the time, anything of Japanese origin was Nipponese.

That also explains the line from the Pink Floyd song “The Postwar Dream”. The song was on the album “The Final Cut”, and you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a historical reference. Great Album.

Seems like I’m getting a little random though, so I better stop here. I was re-reading yesterday’s post, and it seemed more like a jumble of random stuff, rather than just some interesting links. I had better stop while I’m still within 3 subjects of the title.

Posted in Rambling, Random, Books No Comments »

I have been meaning to create this list for quite awhile now, and decided that I just might as well get on with it. Thanks to this post by Scott. This is the list of books that I want to read. I’ll try to re-arrange it so that I have what I want to read most on top.

If you have any recommendations, feel free to give them to me. Please don’t be offended if I re-order and end up placing your recommendation at the bottom, or if I don’t include it at all.

After all, we all have different interests. Also, feel free to ignore any of my recommendations, or to place them at the bottom of your list

Reading

- CryptoNomicon - Neal Stephenson (Recommended by Art)

To Read:

- Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks (Recommended by Art)

- Pandora’s Star - Peter F. Hamilton (Recommended by Art)

- Judas Unchained - Peter F. Hamilton (Recommended by Art)

- Lord of the Flies, by William Golding (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos) I’ve Read this one before, but I can’t remember it too well.

- The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos) I’ve always wanted to read this one.

- Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos)

- Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos)

- The Lazlo Letters: The Amazing, Real-life, Actual Correspondence of Lazlo Toth (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos)

- American!, by Don Novello (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos)

- Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos) Another one that I’ve always wanted to Read, and never have gotten to.

- Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos)

- In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote (Recommended by Scott at My Thermos)

Finished Reading

- World War Z - Max Brooks

- I am Legend - Richard Matheson

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