Books, tables, weekly dose of randomness

Let's see. I finished The Strain by Del Toro and Hogan. It was good. Definitely the first in a trilogy (I believe). This initial story was sort of wrapped up, but there are certainly story lines left hanging and characters in dire situations. Briefly, it's a vampire story with a bit of a medical bent. Not so briefly? Well, we follow Eph Goodweather of the CDC as he's called to investigate a plane full of dead people. He provides the medical background mentioned earlier while Abraham Setrakian provides the vampire background. (He's the hunter, not the vampire) They either use or at least nod at most of the accepted vampire myths while tweaking a couple (it's a virus and teeth are not involved in the blood drinking). It will be interesting to see where the story goes, I look forward to the next one.

I also made it through The Magic Thief: Lost book 2 of that series. I really like the way these stories are told and this one is another fun little romp. Conn, the titular magic thief has lost his focus stone and proceeds to try and speak with the magic by blowing things up. Good lad that Conn. Sarah Prineas relates the story in a nice easy going fashion that will have you done with the book in an afternoon. Again I look forward to seeing what happens next.

I've burned through a couple of the Kindaichi Case Files books. They're always fun. I really need to track down some of the ones I've missed.

The letter 'r' has run across some lovely tables. If Dad wants to make that first one in the video we'd take a couple. Although I can't imagine how careful you'd have to be putting that one together... Yikes. Talk about measure twice cut once. I'm not sure I'd ever get out of the measuring phase on that one.

Weather has finally turned very much summer-y. Too hot. ^_^ I miss the rain. Although parts of the garden don't. I think our cucumbers and watermelons are doomed. Peas and beans seem ok though. As do the tomatoes. We finally have some serranos, although the poor jalapeno seems to have gone on strike... We blame the monster of a tomato plant we've got next to it.

Kids have been enjoying the pool (thanks littlest sis), although lovely wife is about to throw the lot of them in it and leave them there. Apparently they think she's some sort of pool toy.

We managed to survive the 4th without setting anything on fire (sounds like we're one up on Dad in that respect) although that can certainly liven things up. We had good food and decent fireworks. If I ever have to light lightning flashes again it will be too soon. That and snakes. Why did it have to be snakes...

At any rate the summer marches on. Which is good.

Guinew Moon

In case you haven't run across it yet, this is awesome. Although I must admit after talking to lovely wife and learning that the paper cut bit was not parody I have now declared that I will NEVER read the rest of this series. Paper cut? Seriously? If you're going for humor it's brilliant. If you're trying to set up an event that drives a serious plot point, not so much.

In which I talk about Blade Runner AGAIN

So. Blade Runner. You'd think I'd get tired of talking about this film. Actually, more to the point you'd think Ridley Scott would get tired of re-working it every few years. The "Final Cut" (and those quotes are the "made with the fingers" variety) came out a while ago and I finally (pun firmly intended) got around to seeing it. I feel a little bad it's taken this long, but eh, whatcha gonna do? I can't actually tell you the last time I rented a movie...

At any rate. As has been documented here in this blog (not long after it started in fact) I have a bit of history with this film. From birthday parties to college classes the film (as well as the original PKD novel) has a bit of a place in my life. Much to the disbelief of friends and relatives. (Boring is the word most often invoked.) Philistines the lot of them. I'm not completely convinced the Final Cut really offers anything new, but it is certainly a touch prettier. That opening sequence (which I'm pretty sure is a touch longer now) is still breathtaking. And I think there are a couple extra quick shots and the soundtrack is tweaked in a couple places. Oddly I think Bryant's math is fixed in this version once again making it a little less obvious that Scott's Deckard is a replicant, but whatever. Anyone that's followed the film knows his opinion on that score.

I think the thing I enjoyed most about watching it this go round were all the little touches. Gaff's origami, the sound of the neon lights flashing, the photo reading machine, Vangelis's score. It's all highly iconic stuff now and in some ways a little difficult to appreciate. The language of this film has been borrowed so many times (from 5th Element to Cowboy Bebop to well, really any dystopic sci fi film of the last couple decades) it's easy to forget just how new it was at the time. Between this film and 2001 (there's that boring word again) I'm not entirely certain there's another film out there that shaped sci fi cinema as much.

So I'll avoid all the talk of humanity and dystopia and influence and simply say, yeah Blade Runner still has it. There's a reason this thing is a classic and a touchstone. If you've not seen it, track down the Final Cut and give it a look. Your geek cred will thank you.

Speaking of dystopias family, congratulations go out to younger sis on birth of baby girl. Although you don't fix the spelling of that middle name and well... At any rate. Congratulations, glad all are healthy and well. Good luck restoring any sort of order to that house. You are all doomed now as you are well and truly out numbered.

I've been watching Piranha these last few mornings while I exercise. Also a truly great film.

I think I'll stop commenting on Monster until I've finished the series, but if you've thought about reading manga, but not been sure of a decent series to start with, this one's a good bet. Pretty compelling.

I'm this close to finishing The Strain. It is good. More when done.

I'll be starting the sequel to The Magic Thief (called Lost I believe) soon. Looking forward to that. It's a pretty good little series.

Added in the Event and Relic decks for Cutthroat Caverns last night. They do offer a nice little twist on the gameplay. Usually making things even more difficult for the poor players that refuse to trust anybody. Not bad. I really need to convince everyone to take another stab at Arkham Horror. I've been itching to play that one again... I blame that Innsmouth blood.

Befuddlement

Seems like there should be things to talk about here. I'm pretty sure I was aware of them earlier, but it's been that kind of day.

The Arts Festival is going on outside of the Library at the moment and if any of you have a couple grand to loan give us, I will acquire some nice art. As it stands I suspect it will once again pass us by. Although there's a rather nice Army of Darkness spray paint piece... Anyone? (And don't get me started on the beautiful Greek Boat photo... Water! So blue!)

Watched Sunshine again the other day. First 2/3 or so of that movie are great. Ending, not so much.

Apparently DirecTV does not play well with rain. You have rain for a few days in a row and suddenly the signal just wanders away looking for some sun. I wonder what people in, oh, say, Forks do for satellite service. Have the Cullens hold the dishes and sparkle sweat heavily?

Currently reading The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It's a pretty good vampire book. Part medical thriller (some pretty gruesome details yo) part horror novel, it's been pretty interesting so far. Although it appears the vampires don't have teeth. It looks like they may have some sort of extra appendage in their throat that they use instead. I'm actually just getting to the part where the vampire outbreak starts in earnest so I'm not certain of all the details yet. Why do people play around with the vampire rules so much? I don't know that any other undead critter gets yanked around quite so much...

I have a jalapeno from the garden. It will go on the chicken tacos we're making tonight. I'm hoping it is very yummy. And not without some kick. We shall see. Tomatoes are in existence, spinach too. Watermelons down for the count. Not sure about the cucumbers. Or the serranos.

The one with the Twilight movie review in

So. The rumors are true. (Although if there are actually rumors about my Twilight viewing habits, the internets just got a whole lot creepier) I have seen Twilight. And just what did the ol' letter 'd' think of said spot of celluloid? It didn't suck (and believe me, that comment works on lots of levels for this film). Given the fact that they had to hire a writer, they fixed the biggest problem with the books (y'know the writing). So except for the lines they lifted wholesale from the novel, the dialogue and so on wasn't too terrible. Plot was pretty much nonexistant, but that can be said of most romantic comedies. Wait, this wasn't a comedy? Hmm. They definitely need to fire the hairdresser. And the FX guy. I'd really like to know whose bright idea it was to change "sparkling" into "sweating heavily". That glitter effect. Man. Although he did have to carry Bella all over the place, so I suppose a little sweat is expected. (And yeah, the carrying... less said the better.)

Strangely the scene I liked the most was the one that sounded pretty silly from the book, the baseball game. I blame the fact that I enjoyed it on the Muse song though. Can't beat a good Muse song. And Muse apparently makes just about anything better. Bella needs to lose the headphones. Surely she can find a better way to learn her lines. Although if I were surrounded by the people in that movie, I'd probably try to drown them out too.

I did like Alice. She can stay.

So there you go. Not the worst thing ever, but certainly far from anything worth watching more than once. (I am looking at you 2nd oldest niece. Take the headphones out, put the remote down and go start reading some Westerfeld or something.)

Still trucking along through Monster. It is still pretty darn good.

Decided to throw Metal Gear Solid 3 back in the ol' PS2. I still really suck at that game. I may one day make it to the end, but that is not going to be any time soon.

An early Happy Father's Day goes out to Dad. I have no idea what we're getting you. You have no idea what we're getting you. This has not helped matters. So yeah, Love you Dad, you'll have to settle for heartfelt appreciation. ^_^

Oh. They're still not vampires. Deal with it people.

Incroyable

What's this? Not one, not two, but three posts?! Some with actual relevant content? Yeah, yeah, don't get used to it. It's been an odd week.

Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig was pretty darn decent. It played with my mind quite a bit as they lifted characters and settings from the first graphic novel without using those plot points. And then they ended the season right where the graphic novel started. So I've no idea what that means as far as compatibility with the manga's timeline, but it was certainly interesting from a nudge, nudge, wink, wink sort of standpoint. I think I liked the end of season 1 better, but they're both good. Good on ya' Production I.G.!

Monster continues to be interesting as does Cromartie High School.

I will be tackling The Hunger Games soon, mostly to see how it compares to Battle Royale. I will admit to being somewhat skeptical... It might be decent, but I'm expecting a certain amount of been there, done that, it was better in the original. Heh. ^_^

Well, my brain is fried. I blame the updating. I'll get back to you next week. Or will I?

Oh I really, really want to see Moon. Yeah, that's all.

Jungle's gonna get you man

First, the amusing thing about the quiz below, is that I've not read any Susan Cooper. So I've no idea if that's accurate or not. I shall have to remedy this situation. Always interesting stumbling on something new.

Secondly, I have finished The Lost City of Z, by David Grann. Absolutely brilliant book. There's nothing like a good adventure tale for summer reading. And this one was all true. It's amazing what people went through to discover new things and to follow their obsessions. Percy Fawcett was convinced there was a lost civilization deep in the Amazon jungle. He vanished along with his son and his son's friend while searching for it. David Grann, a journalist, became intrigued by the story and ended up journeying to the Amazon himself to see if he could discover what happened. Truly fascinating stuff. Cannibals, spies, rivals, adventure, romance this book has it all - just like the Princess Bride, well ok, there's not really any romance. Maybe a little. If you ever thought you wanted to go visit the Amazon, this book will either cement that desire, or cure you of it.

Also read Emily the Strange: Lost Days. Another great little young adult book. Emily has amnesia. In fact she doesn't know her name is Emily. It might be Earwig. Or Molly. She also doesn't know why she's in the town of Blackrock. Or why it's so beige. Her life is truly a mysterious thing. Fortunately she has a slingshot, some helpful black cats and some pretty decent sleuthing skills. She's going to need them to make sense of her life and the town she's found herself in. Recommended.

For grins and chuckles I threw Sly Cooper in the PS2 the other day. Game is still good and oddly, surprisingly challenging.

Apropos of nothing

Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

Susan Cooper (b. 1935)

23 High-Brow, -3 Violent, -13 Experimental and -15 Cynical!

Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Peaceful, Traditional and Romantic! These concepts are defined below.

Though born in England, Susan Cooper currently lives in the United States. She is most well-known for her The Dark Is Rising sequence, which has received substantial critical acclaim, the second book (also called The Dark Is Rising) in the series winning a Newbury Honor and the fourth book (The Grey King) being awarded the Newbury Medal, one of the world's most prestigious awards for children's literature. The series is one of the finest examples of contemporary fantasy: the kind of fantasy where magic happens in an actually existing place. The Dark Is Rising is set in Britain, where two common themes of fantasy are combined; that of a magic world parallel to ours, which later became so popular with the Harry Potter books and that of ordinary British school-children playing a role in the struggle between Good and Evil, which had earlier been explored by C S Lewis.

Cooper manages to use the idiom of traditional children books to tell a tale of epic proportions, as evil beings from Celtic legends appear on Earth to do battle with the Old Ones, a secret society of people with magic powers. She is also able to combine this rather romantic vision with important messages, the compassion of one of the children being vital to the cause of Good at one point in the story. In Cooper's world, what you think and do matters on a grand scale, a message children and adults alike should take to their hearts.

You are also a lot like Ursula K Le Guin.

If you want some action, try China Miéville.

If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, Lian Hearn.

Your score

This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetical, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you're at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn't mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.

High-Brow vs. Low-Brow

You received 23 points, making you more High-Brow than Low-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, rather than the best-selling kind. At their best, high-brows are cultured, able to appreciate the finer nuances of literature and not content with simplifications. At their worst they are, well, snobs.

Violent vs. Peaceful

You received -3 points, making you more Peaceful than Violent. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you aren't, and you don't, then you are peaceful as defined here. At their best, peaceful people are the ones who encourage dialogue and understanding as a means of solving conflicts. At their worst, they are standing passively by as they or third parties are hurt by less scrupulous individuals.

Experimental vs. Traditional

You received -13 points, making you more Traditional than Experimental. Your position on this scale indicates if you're more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, traditional people don't change winning concepts, favouring storytelling over empty poses. At their worst, they are somewhat narrow-minded.

Cynical vs. Romantic

You received -15 points, making you more Romantic than Cynical. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you'll find the sentence "you are also a lot like x" above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, romantic people are optimistic, willing to work for a good cause and an inspiration to their peers. At their worst, they are easily fooled and too easily lead.

Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy

Summer madness

And so the kids are out of school. Alas poor wife, we hardly knew ye. After the initial, "you are all driving me insane, now GO OUTSIDE!" phase has worn off I'm sure she'll be fine. Once she's applied some sunscreen since they're apparently living at the city pool.

Garden continues to grow, although we seem to have lost some watermelon seedlings along the way. We may have to plant one more just to be safe. Tomato plant seems a little stressed as well. I really need to take another picture so I have proof that we had things growing at one point. ^_^

Monster vol 2 was quite good and the story continues. Looks like Dr. Tenma plans to leave the hospital to hunt after the serial killer he saved. And the police are convinced he had something to do with several new deaths. Ooo tension. heh heh.

I'm currently reading through Cromartie High School volume 1 and let me tell you, it's hilarious. Upstanding student applies to delinquent high school to encourage friend to go to school. Only friend does not make it into said school. Hijinks ensue. Lots and lots of hijinks. There are stories about dominoes and rabbits living with lions and pudding. (And I believe I've made my feelings known on stories with pudding) If you can locate it, read it. Or possibly watch the anime, I have plans to do that as well.

Speaking of anime, Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig (or Stand Alone Complex season 2) is excellent. I really like that series. Production IG has done a great job with that world.

In other slightly related news, this week was E3. And there were some excellent Wii related announcements. New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, and some others. If you have a Wii hooked up to the net, I recommend checking out the Nintendo channel and watching the videos. Some great looking stuff. Can't wait for Galaxy 2, I loved the first one. Oh and there's more Wii Sports and Wii Fit and... heh heh, like I said list goes on.

Anniversary was this week. 14 years. 14 long great years. ^_^ Love you honey! This last year was certainly better than the previous, but held it's own set of challenges. We're certainly ready for things to settle down a touch more.

And I believe that's enough. Oh I'll throw this out there. Some of those stories look pretty great. And it's possible to waste a bit of time at that site...

Myths and Monsters

The last book in the Percy Jackson series, The Last Olympian is out and it's quite good. It manages to wrap things up while still leaving the author lots of room to play in. The only real question is, will we get more stories with Percy and crew, or will it be the "next generation". As the book is still pretty new, I won't go into great detail, but this one is certainly action packed (almost a little too much so) and manages to tell a pretty unique story. There's not as much cribbing from older mythologies this time around, so that's nice. Give it a read.

Monster volume one, by Naoki Urasawa is mostly setting the stage for the story to come, but it does a pretty good job. Part hospital drama, part crime thriller, we follow Dr. Kenzo Tenma a brilliant young neurosurgeon that seems to have it all. He's engaged to the Director's daughter and has a promising career ahead of him. Until he runs afoul of hospital politics. Deciding that all lives are equal and that he's going to operate on a young boy that's come in ahead of the city's Mayor (in direct violation of the Director's orders) Kenzo loses everything he had. He saves the young boy but the Mayor dies. The Director makes it his mission to put Kenzo in his place and his fiance leaves him realizing his fate is sealed. That might be enough to get things going, but the real twist comes in when years later, now actually running the hospital, Kenzo finds out that the boy he'd saved is now going around killing people. And so the chase begins. Looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

JCVD is a rather brilliant little movie. It follows Jean Claude Van Damme as he gets stuck in a hostage crisis. Much like My Name is Bruce, the film plays with audience expectations concerning the main star and puts the hero in a situation they've dealt with theatrically a million times. Only now it's for real. There's a lot of humor here and some heartbreak. Good on Van Damme for playing the part.

And that's about it for random review time. In other news, we had a nice little game of San Juan last night with the letter 'r'. I rather like that game. And cheeseburgers on demand season is officially open. Gotta love the grill. I think we'll try ribs this week.

Moments in the Sun

Special follows your Average Joe™ who is accepted into a drug trial, becomes convinced he has super powers (he doesn't) and uses them to fight crime (tackle people). Drug company suits are not amused and downward spiral of events follow. Will Average Joe™ prevail over the suits? Well watch the movie. Draw your own conclusions. The trailer is a little misleading on this one. It sounds like a relatively funny movie right? And in some ways it is. The problem is, they play everything a little too straight and so there are times you really start to wonder if you should be laughing at what's happening. Instead of crying or finding someone to help the poor man. The performances are all really well done and I think that's what makes it so hard to decide how you should view this movie.

We officially have the starts of several things growing in the garden. Some Spinach, some Cucumbers, a couple others. This is good. I'm really looking forward to seeing if we can actually keep things alive long enough to get some food out of them. Mmm pickles. And Spinach salad...

I suddenly have a lot of things to read/watch. Some of them may make their way here. I can recommend Melody A.M. by Röyksopp. If you're familiar with the caveman Geico commercial that takes place in the airport (he's on the moving sidewalk), you know one song on the album, Remind Me. It's a good album if you like electronica (actually it's good even if you don't). Bits of it remind me of Pink Floyd for some strange reason.

Goings on gone

square foot garden,
originally uploaded by dkun.

Yeah a little late and you've seen the pictures, blah, blah, blah. Blame my wife who seems not to understand the concept "flickr pool".

Managed to enjoy the week off with Dad in town. Even if we spent most of it working. Here you can see one of the boxes we built for our square foot garden. There are two. And hopefully they will provide us with lots of yummy food. We also rearranged the girls' room. Bunk beds are now single beds. And the corner of shame has been banished.

We did squeeze some fun in. Star Trek is a good show (even in spite of reboot romances... Spock?! Seriously?!). Quantum of Solace is good (pay no attention to my wife or father, they're muddled from the work and the heat). And the Aquarium is quite nice now. A really nice South American exhibit.

Managed to finish Drood by Dan Simmons. I quite liked it. I'd really like to know which parts were fiction. Well ok, a lot of it is, but there's a lot of fact in there too. Sounds like Dickens got a little strange at the end of his life, although not as strange as some of his associates. Drood tells the tale of the end of Dickens's life as seen through the eyes of his friend/collaborator/jealous adversary William "Wilkie" Collins. Pretty fascinating and a touch horrifying. And what more do you want from a summer-y novel?

How about South American adventure and jungles and spies and lost cities and madness and death? That's what The Lost City of Z, the current book I'm reading, promises. Oh and did I mention it's all true? Nice.

20th Century Boys Volume 1 is pretty good. It sounds like it's a long series, but I look forward to the chance to read it.

Well, it's hot. Even in the basement. I must go melt now. As you were.

Storm before the calm

Getting ready for an entire week off. It will be glorious. And the best part is getting to see Dad since he's flying out this weekend. Looking forward to that. Even if we are getting suckered into manual labor. Got to build some squarefoot garden boxes and get some grub planted as well as possibly redoing the girls' room.

Had a great lunch to celebrate Cinco de Mayo yesterday (yes we celebrated a day late). Some truly yummy Mexican food. (I made salsa)

Watched Cronocrimenes (Timecrimes for favorite niece) the other night. Decent time travel mystery type flick. Some of it was predictable, but there were a couple nice little twists.

Will finally get to watch Quantum of Solace soon. Looking forward to that. Making my way through the first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It's pretty enjoyable too, but then I like the GitS universe.

In mocking Twilight news, it gave G nightmares. Lovely wife decided to snag it from the redbox due to massive amounts of whining from McK and M. They all watched it without me (probably wise on their part). But yeah, G not so much ready for emo dudes with bad hair "vampires". Even ones that sparkle. And aren't really vampires. Oh and the director of the third movie totally mocked the first movie (wouldn't watch it at gunpoint) and then backpedaled when fans (and believe me, Twilight fans put the fanatic back in fan...) expressed emo whining outrage.

And long live blogger's autosave. This post was almost gone due to some lovely Firefox issues.

Suspect that's good enough for now.

Cue the mad laughter

Just a quick note to point to this. Not the most amazing 600th post, but it mocks Twilight so it fits the basic criteria.

Subtitled for your reading enjoyment

It's been Foreign Film Week in casa del 'd'. (This means subtitles oh favorite niece. You gots to read those movies. Because they're awesome. And not in English. You could turn the subtitles off, but unless you speak Cantonese or Swedish it's just a whole lot of pictures at 40 frames a second. Or whatever that film speed is.)

We started off with Hard Boiled. Mostly for historical and completist sorts of reasons. It was interesting mostly for those same reasons. Although anything involving babies, cotton balls, or fire extinguishing was awesome. And hilarious. I think this film is best described as a reverse classic. It's easy to see now how other films have built on or ripped off this one. Sometimes to better effect (Infernal Affairs comes to mind), sometimes not. So it is a genre building/influencing sort of film, but mostly it's interesting to see where things went. John Woo wasn't quite the master of choreographed bullet play yet and there were no doves to be seen! Shocking.

Next up was Let the Right One In the good vampire film from last year. That happened to be from Sweden. It was an interesting coming of age sort of tale that left you not really wanting to be a vampire. At least not one stuck in a twelve year old's body. Although she was quite adept at dropping from trees and killing people. Lots of practice I suspect. There were some good creepy moments and some nice nods to vampire lore and there was NO SPARKLING. That's always a sign of a good vampire movie. In fact sunlight managed to do exactly what it was supposed to do in a rather nice scene featuring a rather distraught character.

Cutthroat Caverns needs to be played by probably at least 4 people and several of them need to not be me. I actually really like the game (despite what you may hear from those in attendance at the game last night). Yes, yes, take things too seriously, get stuck on things too easily. These are not new comments in regards to my gaming personality. The point is, it's fun. It's mean on occasion, but still fun. Now if we can just get McK to realize how some of the cards work and that hoarding doesn't do any good.

G has managed to make a gamer out of my wife. He's been wanting to play through Zelda: Twilight Princess which means my wife gets to play through it for him. She's actually quite close to the end. Truly amazing. A feat not even the letter 'r' has managed to accomplish yet. I am quite proud of both of them for rising to this occasion. Brings a tear to my eye it does. Good on ya G.

From Hell is a dark book. And I don't mean in just subject matter (that was a given). The artwork (on purpose I suspect) can be pretty difficult to discern. This made reading it a chore. I've technically still got the annotations to go through. We'll see. Mostly it made me want to poke around other things dealing with ol' Jack.

I'm not prepared to deal with Spring and a lawn that wants constant attention again. I think we need to turn the back yard into one big gardening experiment... Wife disagrees. Must look into means of remedying that. Hmm...

And on a final note I do not recommend falling down the stairs. It's not pleasant. Nor is it fun. And now I have to get back in the habit of exercising in the morning as well. Stupid stairs.

Quiet moments

Another strangely quiet week on the entertainment front. There are a couple graphic novels I'm plugging my way through - Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper piece, From Hell (which is getting all sorts of tangled up in my head with the Patricia Cornwell book from a couple years ago, the movie version [from longer than that] and Drood the novel about Charles Dickens that I'm also currently reading - all I can say is London must have been one horrible place to live for a while there) and The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way I believe (who is also, apparently, the lead singer for My Chemical Romance). So yeah, some books. Some with pictures, some without.

I can't think of any movies recently seen. I've been a little more interested in board games again. We finally got Drakon which is a nice little tile-laying dungeon themed game. It has some lovely little figures that I want to paint. A dragon and 6 adventurers. They are very small, which does not bode well for a really nice final product, but I really want to try. At any rate, you're trying to steal the dragon's gold while preventing the others in the dungeon from doing the same. My wife is apparently an idiot savant at this game. She has yet to lose. I almost wrested victory from her twice. Undone once by an unbelievably unlucky coin draw and another time by an evil daughter. Oh she knew what she was doing alright. Rotating my poor chamber so I couldn't get the last coin I needed to win, thus sealing yet another victory for evil spouse Ransacks-a-lot. It's a fun little game that seems to allow a pretty wide age range.

Tonight I believe we'll be trying Cutthroat Caverns - a game where you need to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. You're once again in a Dungeon trying to fight your way out past 9 encounters. The trick is you want to be the one to land the killing blow so that you get the points. You do your best to undermine and/or kill (depending on how late in the game it is) everyone else while not completely alienating them. After all, if you get stuck in this place by yourself, no one makes it out alive. Sounds terribly fun. And quite possibly mean. Will have to see how well we handle that (and by we I mean I). I picked up one of the expansions that goes with it that supposedly makes it almost like a D&D campaign - a little more story tying events together. Again, should be fun. Will let you know.

Read the 2nd half of the new Neil Gaiman Batman comic. I think I liked the first half better - the payoff wasn't quite what I expected, but the story itself was very good. And it incorporated an odd Goodnight Moon reference. So points for that. I guess. If you run across it, it's recommended.

Oh, I meant to link to the news that the third Twilight movie has a new director. They're using the guy that did 30 Days of Night. I... I don't know whether to laugh maniacally, or in shame. This guy certainly gets vampires. Too bad Meyer doesn't. Maybe the sparkling will cause temporary blindness and then there will be lots of carnage as they decimate the small town before taking over the world. One can only hope.

Trip the light fantastic

I've gone through a few more fantasy themed tomes as I've finished off a few more books in the Dungeon series by Joann Sfar. They've been pretty fun little reads. I think the main Zenith arc is my favorite, but Parade and Twilight each have their moments. I like the idea that they've set up distinct time periods for the dungeon that they can write about. Nice little idea. Although the Twilight series certainly takes a turn for the odd.

Speaking of the series that shall not be named, I'm sad that this exists. Having wreaked havoc upon the book and film industries must junk food really be next? At least we can all agree that this is junk food.

These are decent. Some are funnier than others. I think it mostly depends on how much they rely on the work itself to provide the humor.

And that's about all you're gonna get. I'm far too tired to entertain you lot. Oh and there is no photographic proof that the girls were ever in some sort of play this year. You can blame lovely wife. Something about a DVD that may or may not get made. So there.

Spinning my wheels

Well, I'm not sure I could tell you what's gone on in the past week. I have vague memories of watching Mummy 3. Not really worth your time. They mostly forgot what made the first one fun, instead choosing to almost parody that style. Which was in some ways already a parody. Oh well. There were some funny bits at least. And the effects weren't bad.

I'm pretty sure I've read a lot of graphic novels lately. I remember Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill (of Heart Shaped Box - so good). It was appropriately spooky and certainly reminded me that he's Stephen King's son. I think I saw a lot more of his Dad's influence on this one than in some of his other work.

Dungeon is a French fantasy story that's rather amusing, if cartoon-ily bloody. Follow Herbert the Duck as he tries to become a barbarian. Or at least able to pull his sword from the scabbard. His friend Marvin (the vegetarian dragon) tries his best to keep him alive. It's all good fun.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is old fantasy at it's finest. Mike Mignola (Hellboy) illustrates Howard Chaykin's telling of the old Fritz Leiber stories. Fun romp through classic fantasy.

Our front yard is currently in a state of disrepair as we wait for the city to come inspect our sprinkler hookup. It's a good thing we have neighbors that understand this stuff. Although my back is certainly not thrilled that we decided to take the city up on irrigation water...

McK and M have both been in plays the last couple days at school. Lovely wife reports that all went well. I have no idea if photographic proof of this exists or not.

Favorite niece and younger Sis are celebrating birthdays soon. We wish them well. And that's a pretty good note to end on. Happy birthday!

Trudging towards the future

Didn't really participate in any April's Fool pranks yesterday. This was my favorite Thinkgeek April Fool's product. And it's good to see that in the tradition of the 8 bit tie, they are going to try and make them. Needs me one of them yo.

We had a fun little roundtable at the Library yesterday focused on books we didn't like. There were quite a few (and we did discuss Twilight and Stephanie Meyer a touch). My favorite Meyer related bit was that the Library keeps two recommendation lists - people that like vampire stories and people that like Stephanie Meyer stories. There you go, further proof that THEY'RE NOT VAMPIRES. This cannot be stated enough. I wonder if the blink tag still works... NOT VAMPIRES Oh it does. This is good.

The story I sort of got around to voicing as one I didn't care for was Blindness I suspect you can track down my thoughts on it in the archives. That's right, it's all about the laziness on these here intarwebs.

What was interesting about the conversation were some of the reasons behind why people didn't like various stories. Things like bad endings, to not wrapping up the plot to just plain poor writing (*cough*Twilight*cough* ^_^). My own dislike for Blindness stemmed from an odd writing style that was sort of helpful and sort of not and a lot of reader manipulation. The author had a story to tell, realistic characters be damned. It was also interesting to see at what point people would just stop reading and move on. Or if they'd finish. I'd say I've finally moved into the move on camp. I have far too many things I want to read to suffer through something that isn't that interesting/good. Even for mocking purposes.

In an unrelated moment, this is funny. Because it's true. Hee hee.

Apparently I need to brush up on my sci-fi reading. I was a bit hard pressed to name some good starting points yesterday. I used to read quite a bit, but I guess it has been a while. Strange. I fell back on the always reliable William Gibson, but I need a few more guns in the arsenal. I may have to check out my Goodreads list again and see what's in there. Or what should be. I may also have to mess around with the shelving there. Maybe create some custom shelves... Cause I have lots of time to do that. Really.

I am still in search of a good fantasy themed board game. You lot are not helping. Apparently this is a difficult topic. While not as hotly contested as some wargames, it looks like fantasy games are a battle zone. This does not bode well for my indecisive nature.

Favorite new recipe: Tangy Shredded Chicken Sandwich Thing. They're great. Warm or cold. Fresh or as leftovers. Pure Yumminess. On a bun.

Must get thoughts sorted on square foot garden. Will need to get that going soon. Also really need to get this sprinkler hookup thing taken care of. And we're contemplating refinancing the house due to the lovely economic disaster. Too many things to tackle.

We're about to finish off Season 3 of Case Closed. Kids are really enjoying it. I am constantly amused as I watch the girls develop their reading/viewing tastes. McK certainly has a thing for mysteries. M isn't too far behind. Although I suspect she likes fantasy a touch more. G just goes along for the ride. Unless there are dinosaurs. That's just a given. We'll probably suffer through watch Mummy 3 this weekend. Hmm and High School Musical 3 come to think of it. Apparently it's a 3 sort of weekend.

Well, I will close this off with props to lovely wife's cousin for the curry packets. We had a rather nice Chicken Korma for dinner. Mmmm curry....

The one with the movies in

I have seen a lot of movies recently. Some good, some not. Here's a quick rundown:

Quarantine is a decent little horror film that suffers from the current shaky-cam trend. Another found footage tale, this follows a TV reporter as she follows the local firefighters. They get trapped in a building and Bad Things Happen. Some decent tension/scares. The actors gave decent performances and the story wasn't as cut and dried as the trailer led you to believe. So that was nice. Not too much worse than a trailer that gives everything away. This is a remake of a Spanish film called [rec] (I think it's Spanish anyway...). So you can't really laud Hollywood for something a little different, but at least they had good taste.

Sukiyaki Western Django (yes that's really the name favorite niece) is basically Yojimbo/A Fistful of Dollars. If A Fistful of Dollars was a western remake of Yojimbo, then Sukiyaki is a Japanese remake of a Western remake of a Japanese movie. Or something. That analogy made a lot more sense in my head. See the movie, it'll make more sense in yours too. Look. What this really boils down to is a familiar story with Japanese style and Takashi Miike action. So it's a little bloodier than the previous incarnations and a whole lot prettier. And weirder. But, you know, in a good way. Just go see it already.

Ghost in the Shell 2 is still very pretty. And very slow. And very pretty (especially on a big screen).

Eagle Eye is crap. What could have been an excellent, riveting action movie about the Patriot Act and how the government is watching us far too often instead devolves down into standard sci-fi story number 20 - the berserk computer. And they didn't even do that well. And to top it off, the only redeeming aspect of the movie (an action movie where the two wildly disparate leads don't fall in love?! About time!) goes down in flames with the LAST SCENE OF THIS HORRIBLY STUPID MOVIE! AAAAA! Make it stop! (The original ending was actually even more stupid, so some restraint was shown, but not nearly enough.) I've decided this movie should actually be considered dangerous. These are real issues. Candy coating them with a ridiculous story about an AWOL AI trivializes them and doesn't encourage the average American to think about them at all. Hey look! That there compooter sure went crazy. That Michelle Monaghan sure is purty. Zowee! Cars are crashin' and jets are 'splodin! Had me a dadgum good time. Wait? The government actually collects this sort of data about us all the time if it wants? Well shucks. <much eye rolling>

My Name is Bruce is the latest Bruce Campbell comedy/horror flick and it was great. If you like Bruce Campbell movies, this one will take you back a bit to the Army of Darkness days. Bruce plays "himself" (the B movie actor, jerk version - wait, is that acting?) getting sucked into trying to save a small town from a real demon. (Bean curd Bruce! Bean curd!) Mostly this movie made me think that it must be weird to be Bruce Campbell. I met him once when he was touring for Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, his second book and it was a rather odd experience. But yes, movie good. (Guan you, guan me, Guan Di!)

I will briefly mention that Blue Moon continues to grow on me. Got a couple games in with the letter 'r' and it was fun. Monty Python Fluxx is odd. Mostly because Fluxx is odd. (Although I'm sure there are others that would argue the other side.) Hot Fudge shakes are yummy. Pork Loin is also yummy. We will soon have a report on some curry spices lovely wife's cousin sent out. Mmmm curry. Shooting zombies is fun. Free Starz weekends are mostly fun.

Yeah, I'm reaching now.

Oh, almost forgot, Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest. I liked it up until the end. Then it fell apart for me as, honestly, I've not got a clue what happened. Or what was supposed to be happening. So, umm, yeah. Mostly ok book I guess?

I'm also looking for a decent fantasy themed board game. Welcoming all suggestions. (And donations! Ha!)