Looping the Hen

A thousand words is sometimes better

I don't really read much anymore, although I used to be a fiend, blowing through up to 10 novels a week. I've been chewing a few pages a day on this. It is fairly standard fantasy fare, though the writer self-published his first novel and sold it to a major house after it did well. I like to stick up for the underdog. It is an easy enough read that 10-12 year olds could work their way through it, and it's family friendly. For those looking for a quick, easy and oftentimes enjoyable story, pick it up (though read the first novel in the series, Eragon, first). If you are looking for heavy plot and crafty machinations, this series is not for you.

For those liking their fantasy a little more passionate and a little deeper, try Mercedes Lackey's best (and may be her first?) trilogy, what I and some friends affectionately refer to as the Gay Mage Trilogy. Magic's Pawn is the first book in the series and introduces the first (as far as I can tell) homosexual protagonist sorcerer in a popular fantasy series. What I found so unusual about it was the fact that Vanyel's sexuality is just another part of the story, not the story as much of our culture and media have made it. A good deal of Lackey's work since is formulaic, as are most newer novels by Jordan, Rice, McCaffery, and Goodkind. That doesn't make her newer stuff bad, it just doesn't have the fire of her earlier, darker works.

(/on tangent) I remember the days years ago when after finishing a good trilogy, I often wished for more books in a series. Nowadays, I understand why 3 books is where most larger stories ended. I gave up years ago on The Wheel of Time as Jordan began to replay plots and storylines ad nauseum, and I am getting to the same place with the up-till-now superb Goodkind novels. I am becoming a firm believer in too-short series than too-long. At least trilogies I can look forward to re-reading beginning to end if the mood strikes. (/off tangent)

Even trilogies as long as another of my favorites: Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, which although labelled a trilogy, comes in 4 very large books. The first novel is A Dragonbone Chair. Although it starts very slow (VERY slow; it took me several tries to get through) and uses many of the same fantasy touchstones as I have read a thousand times, the tale woven becomes much greater than its parts, and most of its peers. The climax of the story is reminiscent of the better of Terry Brook's tales, though more fulfilling and with better denoumont.

For a wonderful series one can finish beginning to end (of the first 3 books) in a weekend (or even a long day), Ursula K LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea trilogy is among the very best. Very few authors will ever match this simply written, but compelling and engrossing masterpiece. Book two, the Tombs of Atuan, remains my favorite of the three. In it, LeGuin crafts as rich a dark fantasy religion as has ever been created, complete with rituals and secrets. Were the story presented only from the side of the hero of the original book, the story would have likely failed. However, her presentation of the story from two sides is ingenious and makes for a greater tale.
For those who saw Sci-Fi's atrocious adaptation, please discard any judgement's on the value of the sourcework. Night and day is not a great enough divide to explain the difference in quality between the TV and hardcopy versions.

Although I cut my teeth on Fantasy (is it that obvious?), nowadays a good hard science fiction series can often grip me much easier than its equivalent fantasy brethren. I hate to say it, but I believe the science fiction folks come out with a much wider array of plot schema's, even though fantasy and science fiction universes are equally limitless. For those who have never read any science fiction (other than maybe Star Wars), the first I read, and still the most memorable, remains Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I won't even try to briefly summarize; just buy it, read it, and enjoy it.

Rounding out my 5 recommendations for tonight is a book out of the imaginary realms altogether, and is considered by many to be one of the finest novels of the 20th century. Most of the time, I find books with those types of accolades miserably droll (War and Peace?) or exceedingly, breathtakingly, almost painfully boring. (Grapes of Wrath, ugg) Of course, I speak of Lolita, a book I only ended up reading after researching the reference to Nabokov's masterwork in the Police song 'Don't Stand'. Lolita is as close to a perfect novel as I have ever read, made even more astonishing by the fact that English was a 2nd language to Nabokov. (Russian was his first) His instinctual use and understanding of language, pun, and imagery puts 99% of writers (even good writers) below him.

At least for me, (and for G-Max if I remember), I could often only read the book a page or two at a time. I sometimes compare it to fudge. Almost painfully sweet, rich, and thick, but oh so satisfying. It took me almost 3 months to read through it the first time, even though it is probably only as long as a standard novel. (300 pages or so) The story is about one of the strongest-held (but most fantasized about) taboos in our society: older man and very young girl. Even the protagonist (also the narrator) knows what he is doing is questionable, yet he stills revels in his dark obsessions. One takes turns at being engrossed, disgusted, and bewildered, as the story could easily be (and is probably, in a thousand real life cases) true. Although not for the faint of heart, I recommend and often give this book to to the hard-core and openminded readers in my life.

Music tomorrow! Night!

I wonder what I can do to mess with myself this week

Ran another good practice run today, my best so far: 26:11 for a 5k. Exactly a minute better than my prior best (2 weeks ago). My goal for the Rudolph Run on Friday night has been 26:24 (8:30 pace), so it should be achievable, but I am wondering what I can do to mess this one up like I did the last one.

Still, it's a cool race that is run prior to the Nashville Christmas Parade, so everyone gets to run to thousands of cheering people; I am guessing that should be about as motivating as it gets. Although I am not looking forward to 35 degree weather!

Like Whiskers on Kittens

I'm not much into the gift-giving thing, unless your name is Mom or Dad usually. Well, girlfriends also are usually showered with them, but let's just say I'm in no fear of that this year. Still, I promise myself (usually every Dec 26th) some year I will be less Grinch-like. Maybe this one!

My eldest brother has an interesting theorem of gift-buying, which is that if it is good enough for him, it is good enough for someone else. I find most times that is very true. And considering movies, books, and games are some of my favorite things, they are generally what I give. So if one or more of these finds their way to some folks, feel blessed, as you are likely one of the few.;)

Fav Movies:

Dark City - A well-crafted sleeper. Strong acting and interesting plot despite its holes. And most importantly, Jennifer Connelly. *swoon*

A Knight's Tale - Heath Ledger: not an actor. This movie? I love it. Paul Bettany as Chaucer steals every scene he is in. Everyone else out-acts Ledger also. It also has one of my top 10 favorite scenes ever: a medieval dance that takes place to David Bowie's 'Golden Years.' Classic. The little shake Shannyn Sossamon gives in it makes me shiver.

The Jacket - Trippy, and most people either love it or hate it. It's not Jacob's Ladder, which is a problem some of the elitists have with it. Me, I'm thankful that it is not. Even in my coffee-house days, Jacob's Ladder was an interminible bore. Another year or so will determine if this movie has staying power on my top 5 list. Hottie of the flick? The ever-corseted Keira Knightly.

The Postman - Another love it or hate it flick. I'm not a big Costner fan, but he's appropriately geeky and mild in this flick. And the amazing Tom Petty has a bit part; he's not awful!

Spirited Away and Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within are both animated fantasies I keep loaded into my five disc player.

I wonder if any one else is like me. Movies that are my favorites are not necessarily the movies I think are 'best', but are the ones I turn on over and over and may have just playing in the background while I do something else. (Well, maybe not the Jacket, as its a little too surreal for that) For example, Dangerous Liaisons (the Malkovich version) is definitely on my list of 'best movies', but is only something I can break out once in a while. At the same time, Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within, not even a great movie by my standards, is one that I find myself watching repeatedly. Is that wierd?

Anyhoo, this is longer than I thought! Stay tuned tomorrow for top books or music, not sure which!

Choke!

Ugg, ran that race today. Was hoping to break 27:00, and had good odds of that with a flat, fast course. Of course, as always, I am my own worst enemy. I typically drink infrequently, and even if I do, not much. I found 9 Amberbock bottles downstairs this morning following our D&D game last night. I'm not sure that is the good kind of 'carb-loading' runners talk about.

I ended at 28:32, which although 1:34 faster than my prior race, was simply horrible. I ran my first mile in 7:53, a very good pace (for me) that would have gotten me my time. However, I was already dead at the marker. I ran the 2nd at 9:12; usually, I am a very consistent runner, with my miles speeding up or staying close over the course of a race, so I knew I was in bad trouble. Still, a 17:05 split at the 2-mile meant I only needed to do another 9:00 mile to finish where I wanted. Considering I felt like I was going to cough up a lung (or two), I knew that wasn't going to happen, and my last mile was a pathetic 10-something. (with 2 minutes of walking)

Bad Tobias.;) I will redeem myself on Thursday! I don't care so much about beating any particular time in that one (due to heavier hill content), I just want to run a good, consistent race.

Funniest thing was I ended up top in my age group and got my picture taken (will link to it when they put it up) and won 5 bucks and everything, although I am pretty sure that is because I was the only one in my group. Go me! (The race was only 82 folks.) Still, it was catered by Panera Bread, and two asiago focaccia bagels made everything better.

I am a conservative...

But that, these days, is hugely different than being a Republican. The sponsorship is bi-partisan, but it looks like much of the dissent is coming from the right side of the aisle.

Blech.

All sorts of good news out today

Sony BMG recalls malware CD's.

It probably won't be 3 months before they try something similar in a different form, but I'll take what I can get. I hope people have a long memory on this one; it is beacoup important. It will be XBox 360 for me over the PS3 due to all their actions as a company.

Phew

ICANN and the US will remain in control of the internet backbone.

I didn't really expect anything else, but with many of the wishy-washy politicians we have around lately, you never know.

Update: A good editorial from the WSJ, though anti-climactic. I think its importance is the understanding that despots didn't support the UN power-grab because they want to help starving children log on to Disney.com. (HT: Glenn Reynolds)

Downtime

Sugar I'm going down down! (Sorry, just received my Fall Out Boy CD, the last business I will ever do with Sony BMG). I mercilessly copied it to my hard drive, and I just might make a copy for both my car and for work. Heck, I might want to make a backup to keep at my dad's, and my brother's, just in case my dad is involved in a nuclear accident. One for the CD player in the other room, and the 2nd computer also makes an even 7 copies or so. Then I'll make copies of all my CD's to keep at Mom's for when I go to Connecticut, and another to store at my friends in Sacramento. And another for Africa when I join the Peace Corps.

Sons of bitches.

Hadn't actually intended to get on a RIAA rant, sorry!

Took Thanksgiving week off, aaaah, a full blissful 7 days of laziness! Although not quite: have 2 road races, on Sunday and Thanksgiving. Ran a 27:16 tonight as my last heavy practice until the 20th; hoping to break 27:00, as the course is flat and fast. (Describes only 1 of my exes!) Thanksgiving's race is at the nicest mall in Nashville; of course it will be closed. Blech.

Will go see Harry Potter at a Monday matinee and drown in extra butter and peanut butter Twixes. Maybe an extra day of Dungeons and Dragons with some friends. Hopefully 2 nights of Amberbock and poker. And the rest of the time will be spent blissfully unloading on people with my L85A1 in BF2. Anyone with any other ideas please let me know! I will not think about budgets! I will not think about saving money so higher-ups can spend it! I will not think about how they are decorating my cubicle while I am away!

Yaay, go me!

Run and Gun

Battlefield 2 (link currently not working for some reason) is my current obsession. Unlike my other games (Magic, Eve), there's no playing it in Windowed (plus the fact that most would die instantly trying to do 2 things at once), and one of the main reasons I nada post lately. I am in a cool clan, all adults (yay). Anyone who has the game should feel free to go to our clan's site and play on our ranked server. We don't use the ingame voice and use Teamspeak instead (IP also on our site). I am BobGnarly...{TFL}.

Gamers: 2 Jack Thompson: 0

I first mentioned him here.

It appears our friend Mr. Thompson is pulling himself off the GTA lawsuit. Big whiny-butt.

The devil you know

Who do you believe? Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman writes an op-ed about the UN meeting to determine how to wrest control of the Internet from the US.

Kofi Annan presents us his kindler, gentler view.

Decide for yourself; but I trust Kofi about as much as I trust Satan.

Update: More backstory here. (via Instapundit)

MPAA/RIAA: Truly Suckful

The two antitheses of Fair Use are at it again. It is crap like this that makes many of us (or me at least) want to pirate music or movies. The recording industry has no idea how big a hole they are digging for themselves. People who want to make sure artists are compensated justly for their work will eventually become fed up with a neverending string of new technologies that stifle our ability to use our own property. I'm all for revolting against our Musical Overlords.

I think this is the most important graf:

These laws aren't about piracy, and anyone who thinks they are needs to stop, look, and listen. Once the MPAA and pals have their way, you're going to pay through the nose for even the most basic of Fair Use rights. You're going to pay for the right to rewind and "re-experience" content. The Copy Prohibited Content class, complete with its asinine insta-delete feature is nothing but a back door into attacking what the content industry hates most: your ability to timeshift content. Yes, Jack Valenti said the VCR would destroy Hollywood, and while these moonbats no longer believe that, they do know that the rhetoric works.

Umm, yep.

Semi-related article here that I hope hurts profits for Sony. I'm so glad they have decided to start including deep-level spyware with their CD's, I don't get enough from Neopets.

Why I don't work for John Hancock

Let's just say it's not my best investment ever!

Their stock shot up yesterday afternoon and I thought I was clear; it was risk-takers betting the pharma-trials went well. We found out early this morning they didn't; as a matter of fact they were total failures, and the stock reflected it. From my understanding, not much left in the pipeline in the way of research either. Ugg.

Which is why I am glad I take my Mom's advice (and you should too): don't bet what you don't have! It could have been worse, but it was the smallest part of my portfolio. Those shares will hang in the back for about 10 years and maybe I'll break even; actually, the best bet now would probably be some major pharmacom buying it up for their R+D department.